REPORT: Syrian opposition National Coalition elects president

       
The main Syrian opposition National Coalition on Saturday elected Ahmad Jarba as president after a close runoff vote held in Istanbul, coalition members told Reuters.        

Jarba is a tribal figure from the eastern Hasaka province who is well linked with Saudi Arabia. He defeated businessman Mustafa Sabbagh, Qatar's pointman in the opposition.

Meanwhile, rebels clashed with an opposition unit linked to al Qaeda in northern Syria, activists said on Saturday, in a deadly battle that signals growing divisions among rebel groups and rising tensions between locals and more radical Islamist factions.         

The rebel infighting comes as forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have made gains on the battlefield and drawn comfort from the downfall this week of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, which under ousted President Mohamed Morsi had thrown its weight behind the Syrian opposition.           

The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), the new al Qaeda franchise announced by the head of global network's Iraq leader, has been quickly working to cement power in rebel-held territories of northern Syria in recent months.           

ISIS units have begun to impose stricter interpretations of Islamic law and have filmed themselves executing members of rival rebel groups whom they accuse of corruption, and beheading those they say are loyal to Assad.            

This as an activist and Syrian state media said that regime troops are advancing in parts of the rebel-held city of Homs.                                     

In this regard, Homs-based activist Tarik Badrakhan said  that Syrian troops seized control of buildings in the rebel-held district of Khaldiyeh; the first time government forces entered Homs neighborhoods held by rebels for over a year.                             

Badrakhan added that troops began the move Friday night and mentioned that they continued to pound the area with mortar shells and missiles until Saturday.   
                   
Syria's two-year revolt against four decades of Assad family rule has degenerated from a peaceful protest movement into a bloody civil war that has killed more than 100,000 people.

REUTERS/AP


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