After al Qaeda disowned the Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham, a prominent pro-al Qaeda Saudi cleric called on ISIS members to defect. An Islamic Front official praised al Qaeda’s move, and claimed ISIS is now “without cover or co-sponsor … totally stripped after al Qaeda and the people abandoned it.” An observer group said the son of a well-known nonviolent activist was tortured to death by Syrian military intelligence, and the group called for help in pressuring the regime to release tens of thousands of detainees. Islamic battalion fighters targeting a village in Hama killed five students when a rocket hit a school. In Raqqah, Kurdish YPG fighters clashed with ISIS and Islamic battalion fighters near Karsour, and killed six ISIS fighters in an attack on an ISIS base in Berkno. Regime forces battled Islamic battalion fighters near the Al-Tabaqa military airport in Raqqah. An Islamic battalion commander was killed by ISIS in northern Aleppo province.
