In this photo provided by the anti-government activist group Aleppo Media Center (AMC), which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, Syrian residents run in the street after a government warplane dropped barrel bombs at al-Sakhour neighborhood, in Aleppo, Syria, Saturday, April 5, 2014. The leader of al-Qaida, Ayman al-Zawahri , called on Syrian militant groups to determine who killed his representative in the country, a man many fighters believe died at the hands of a rival militia.CAIRO – Al-Qaida’s leader called on fighters to determine who killed his chief representative in Syria, a man many militant groups believe died at the hands of a rival militia, in a move that highlighted a conflict between rebels that has killed hundreds.
In a thinly veiled criticism of the breakaway Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant organization, Ayman al-Zawahri called the killing of Abu Khaled al-Suri an act of “sedition” that should be handled in accordance with Islamic law.
“All Muslims should not help anybody who blows up the headquarters of the holy fighters, or who sends them car bombs and human bombs,” al-Zawahri said in a recorded message posted on militant websites late Friday, referring to the Islamic State’s tactic of attacking rival rebels with bombings.
“Whoever commits such sins should remember that he is fulfilling for the enemies of Islam what they were unable to achieve on their own.”
Al-Suri was killed on Feb. 23, when two suicide bombers blew themselves up inside the militant leader’s compound in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo.