The UN Security Council will hold an informal meeting on Syria this week; Middle East envoy Robert Serry said Syria was “increasingly turning into a regional, if not a global, battleground.” The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights called again for the release of two bishops kidnapped near Aleppo by “rebel fighters from the Caucasus.” The Al Nusrah Front warned civilians not to use the Aleppo-Salamiya road and vowed to target any vehicle passing through. Kurdish and Islamist forces clashed in Hasakah for the seventh day; fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and from the Al Nusrah Front are said to have a base in Huriyat village near Qahtaniya city. Clashes between Kurdish and Islamist forces continued in Raqqah; the “emir of Al Nusrah in the village” of Jabla was reportedly killed. Rebel battalions fought against Palestinian Popular Committees fighters in Yarmouk Camp in Damascus.
