Special to WorldTribune.com

NICOSIA — Al Qaida’s Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is fighting to stop a Sunni rebel offensive in Syria.

Opposition sources said ISIL has launched a major attack on Islamist militias amid an offensive against the regime of President Bashar Assad in the coastal Syrian province of Latakia.

The sources said ISIL operations focused on its Al Qaida rival, Nusra Front for the Defense of the Levant.

“The ISIL attack came within days of the rebel drive into Latakia and was meant to divert its forces,” a source said.

So far, ISIL attacked rebel strongholds in Syria’s Hasaka province. The sources said scores of fighters from Nusra as well as Ahrar Al Sham were killed around the southern Hasaka town of Merkadeh.

The sources said ISIL was coordinating operations with the Syrian military in apparent exchange for promises to control parts of the north.

The Nusra-led offensive in Latakia was the first by the rebels since a similar drive in the province in August 2013. In the previous campaign, Nusra and the Free Syrian Army were defeated within a week.

The Syrian military has claimed heavy rebel losses in Latakia. The military said around 50 fighters were killed in a battle in the Nasser region in northern Latakia on March 31.

At the same time, ISIL has been capturing Nusra and allied strongholds in Hasaka and Dir Al Zour. The sources said an ISIL commander, identified as Omar Farouk Al Turki, was killed in the battles.

The Syrian military said Nusra was also opposed by Syrian Shi’ites in the north. The military said Shi’ites helped the Syrian Army stop a Nusra attack on Foeh, located in the Idlib province near the border with Turkey. The fighting was said to have resulted in the death of an Al Qaida-aligned commander identified as Abu Abdullah Taoum.

  Ahrar Al Sham, Iraq’s Al Qaida teams with Syrian forces to fight off rival Sunni rebel operation, ISIL helps Assad forces stave off attack by rival Nusra Front, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Latakia