ISIL ‘kills 102-year-old and Alawite family’

A Sunni armed group disowned by al-Qaeda has been accused of killing a 102-year-old man and his entire Alawite family in an attack in Syria.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Sunday that the man was shot dead in his bed by fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

They also killed his son, his grandson, his great-granddaughter and her mother, said the monitoring group. Al Jazeera cannot independently verify the report.

According to the group, the family was killed during an attack on Zanuba village in Hama. The group says the victims were members of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam practised by the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. 

ISIL was disowned by the core leadership of al-Qaeda in February, after it launched attacks on other rebel groups and implemented a strict interpretation of Islam in areas it controlled.

Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s primary affiliate in Syria, has fought alongside the brigades of the Islamic Front movement to counter ISIL. 

Elsewhere, several people were injured in Aleppo after the Syrian air force launched fresh attacks against rebel strongholds and dropped barrel bombs, the Syrian Observatory said.

According to the monitoring group, barrel bombs dropped by the Syrian government forces have killed at least 2,000 people in Aleppo and forced thousands of families out of the city.  

Fresh mortar bomb attacks by rebels on government-held areas in Aleppo killed at least four people.