CLASHES between two extremist factions in north-western Syria have left dozens of fighters dead on both sides and raised fears of more deadly violence between groups battling President Bashar Assad’s troops.

The fighting between the al-Qaeda-led coalition known as the Levant Liberation Committee and the extremist Jund al-Aqsa group left nearly 70 dead in some of the worst clashes between insurgents in years, an opposition monitoring group and a rebel commander said.

The violence, ahead of UN-brokered peace talks this month, centred in areas where the central province of Hama and the north-western province of Idlib meet.

A Syrian rebel commander speaking from Turkey said Jund al-Aqsa has proven recently that it is a branch of the Daesh group that is the arch rival of al-Qaeda’s Fatah al-Sham Front.

The commander said Jund al-Aqsa fighters stormed several areas controlled by the Levant Liberation Committee and killed some of its members, triggering intense fighting.

“There is no solution but to uproot Jund al-Aqsa,” the commander said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Levant Liberation Committee has captured six villages from Jund al-Aqsa.

It said two days of fighting had left 69 fighters dead, including 39 from the Levant Liberation Committee. It said the 30 dead from Jund al-Aqsa included four suicide attackers who blew up their vehicles.

Abdul-Rahim Attoun, a senior al-Qaeda religious official in Syria, blamed Jund al-Aqsa for being a group that paid allegiance to Daesh. He added that Jund al-Aqsa was blocking roads used by the Levant Liberation Committee to attack government forces.

A Jund al-Aqsa commander who goes by the name of Karmo said the fighting was triggered by Levant Liberation Committee attacks on Jund al-Aqsa positions.

In the southern city of Daraa, where clashes between insurgents and government forces have continued for days, opposition activist Ahmad al-Masalmeh said an air raid had hit a hospital, putting it out of service.