[An Nahar] "Hardly any" jihadists from the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant... the current version of al-Qaeda in Iraq, just as blood-thirsty and well-beloved as the original...
are left in Aleppo, a Syrian NGO said Wednesday after the fall of ISIL's headquarters there.
"ISIL withdrew from the Inzarat area after festivities with fighters from rebel... brigades, and the post office building was taken over by Islamist rebel fighters" who had been battling ISIL, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
"There are hardly any ISIL members left in the city of Aleppo."
The Observatory said earlier that fighters from several Syrian rebel brigades have seized the headquarters of ISIL in Aleppo.
"Fighters from several Islamist rebel brigades took control of the children's hospital in the Qadi Askar district, which is the headquarters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in the city," the Observatory said.
The Observatory said it was unclear what had happened to "hundreds" of ISIL fighters who had been inside the headquarters.
The rebels freed dozens of people who were being held prisoner in the ISIL headquarters, it added, citing initial reports.
ISIL has been fighting a coalition of moderate and Salafist tough guys angered by a spate of abuses by the jihadists, who have been accused of kidnapping and killing civilians and rival rebels.
Late Tuesday, an ISIL front man said the group would "crush" opposition fighters and warned that it considered members of the opposition National Coalition and the military command of the Free Syrian Army
... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood...
to be "legitimate targets."