Clashes between Syrian rebels and their rivals from an al-Qaida-linked faction spread on Monday from the country’s opposition-held areas in the north to a key eastern city, activists said. The rebel-on-rebel fighting in the eastern city of Raqqa – a long-time bastion of an al-Qaida-linked group known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant – reflects a widening war within a war in Syria, this one against radical extremists. It also suggests emboldened rebels are trying to completely overrun their al-Qaida rivals. The infighting has been the most serious since armed groups initially rose to try overthrow the rule of Syrian President Bashar Assad. The clashes erupted in the northern provinces of Aleppo and Idlib on Friday after residents there accused ISIL fighters of killing a popular doctor. An activist group, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimated that at least […]