Rivalry between jihadist groups fighting in Syria has sharply divided global militant ranks once loosely allied under Al-Qaida, sparking infighting which experts say has hampered efforts to topple President Bashar al-Assad.

And while senior leaders of Al-Qaida were all but above question under revered founder Osama bin Laden, the conflict has gone so far that even his replacement Ayman al-Zawahiri has come in for fierce criticism on jihadist forums online.

Syrian army forces advanced Friday around rebel-held areas of the Old City of Homs, as a car bomb hit a regime-controlled part of the city, killing 14 people.

Around 1,200 rebel fighters and nearly 200 civilians are believed to be inside the rebel-held parts of the Old City, under army siege for nearly two years.

Syrian army forces advanced Friday around rebel-held areas of the Old City of Homs, as a car bomb hit a regime-controlled part of the city, killing 14 people.

Around 1,200 rebel fighters and nearly 200 civilians are believed to be inside the rebel-held parts of the Old City, under army siege for nearly two years.

A powerful rival organization has accused Al-Qaida leaders of betraying the jihadist cause, in the latest widening of divisions rooted in Syria's civil war.

"Al-Qaida today is no longer a base of jihad (holy war)," Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani said in a statement posted on jihadist forums.

A British teenager was killed in a battle in Syria, his father said on Friday, as he revealed that two of his other sons have also gone to fight in the conflict.

Abdullah Deghayes, 18, whose uncle is a former detainee of the Guantanamo Bay camp, died earlier this month after leaving Britain in January.

Syrian refugees in Jordan say they are so miserable that they would rather face "inevitable death" in their war-torn country than live in conditions that have sparked riots.

With Syria's war now in its fourth year, many of the 100,000 refugees in the sprawling desert Zaatari camp in northern Jordan feel the world has forgotten their struggle to survive.

German prosecutors have said they're investigating an alleged Lebanese member of a hard-line Islamic group in Syria and two suspected accomplices accused of helping him procure money and supplies.

Federal prosecutors said Thursday the main suspect is believed to have trained and fought in Syria last year with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, an al-Qaida-linked group.

Members of the U.N. Security Council expressed what they called grave concern Thursday over the plight of Syrian civilians caught in fighting in the old quarter of Homs in Syria, the council's president said.

The body "urged the immediate implementation" of a February resolution to improve humanitarian access in the country, said Joy Ogwu, Nigeria's ambassador, who is serving as the council's current president.

Syrian military aircraft carried out fresh raids Thursday on the outskirts of the Bekaa border town of Arsal.

“A Syrian helicopter launched two strikes on the Khirbet Daoud area in Arsal's outskirts,” state-run National News Agency reported.

Nearly 50 people were killed on Thursday when Syrian rebels attacked one of the largest military barracks in the country, in northern Aleppo, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

It said at least 27 soldiers and pro-regime militiamen were killed and that the rebel losses of 20 dead included a commander.