Activists: Syrian Kurds capture border post

                  
Syrian state-run TV reported Friday that the leader of a powerful al-Qaeda-linked rebel group has been killed  a claim that if confirmed would be a huge blow to fighters trying to topple President Bashar Assad. At least one rebel commander denied the report.                      

Questions remained over whether Abu Mohammad al-Golani, head of Jabhat al-Nusra, or the Nusra Front, had indeed died. State TV said he was killed in the coastal province of Latakia, but did not say when or give details.          

Later Friday, it removed the report from its website without explanation.                       

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which closely monitors the fighting in Syria, said senior Nusra Front leaders contacted by activists in Latakia and the eastern Deir el-Zour province denied al-Golani had been killed.                          

The Nusra Front has emerged as one of the most effective among rebel groups fighting Assad, and it has claimed responsibility for numerous suicide bombings against government targets.

The U.S. State Department put the group on its list of terrorist organizations for its connections to al-Qaeda.                                     

On another note, a Syrian activist group said Kurdish gunmen have captured a crossing point on the Iraqi border after days of fighting with Muslim hard-liners.                    

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Kurdish militiamen captured the Yaaroubiyeh post in northeast Syria on Saturday after three days of clashes with several jihadist groups there, including al-Qaeda-linked factions Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.                       

Clashes between Kurdish fighters and jihadists in northern Syria have killed hundreds of people in the past months.    


REUTERS/AP