Al-Qaeda-linked fighters fought rival Syrian rebels near the border with Turkey on Wednesday, Oct. 2, activists said, in an outbreak of violence driven by the divisions between factions battling President Bashar al-Assad.

The fighting illustrates the volatile situation in Syria as a team of chemical weapons experts start the process of eliminating Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile, with inspections expected to begin next week.

The al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS) took control of the northern border town of Azaz last month, kicking out rival rebels and prompting Turkey to shut the crossing about 5 km (3 miles) away.

ISIS, which wants to merge Syria into a larger state ruled by Islamic law, has maintained control of the town since then and clashes have periodically erupted between it and fighters of the Northern Storm brigade that they had expelled to its outskirts.

Activists said the latest fighting broke out on Tuesday night after a deadline ISIS had set for Northern Storm fighters to surrender their weapons came to an end.

“There are very fierce clashes on the outskirts of Azaz. ISIS cut all roads leading to Turkey and the situation is very tense,” said one rebel source, speaking from Turkey.

Another activist from Azaz said ISIS had seized two checkpoints and a base from Northern Storm and had advanced toward the border. He said some ISIS fighters had been killed, but he did not know how many.

The Syrian rebels have been undermined by infighting, partially over conflicting ideology, but more often over territory, spoils of war and control of resources and smuggling.

The Syria conflict started as a peaceful protest movement against four decades of Assad family rule but turned into a full-scale war after a government crackdown. More than 100,000 people have been killed.

In an audio message this week, ISIS said its image was being distorted by a “widespread media campaign” against it that was trying to stir strife by blaming it for conflicts and ignoring its military victories or giving credit to other groups.

The message accused the Northern Storm brigade of “opening a front” against them in the Azaz area and of conspiring with “the American pig, John McCain” to fight against the Islamists.

McCain, a Republican U.S. senator who has called for U.S. military aid to rebels, visited Azaz in May and was photographed alongside Northern Storm fighters.

The Independent’s veteran Middle East correspondent reported that in the light of growing hostilities with al-Qaeda, FSA delegates from Aleppo met  with senior regime officials.

The delegation made four points: that there must be an “internal Syrian dialogue”; that private and public properties must be maintained; that there must be an end to – and condemnation of – civil, sectarian, ethnic strife; and that all must work for a democratic Syria where the supremacy of law would be dominant. There was no demand – at least at this stage – for Assad’s departure.

The reply apparently came promptly. There should indeed be “a dialogue within the Syrian homeland”; no preconditions for the dialogue; and a presidential guarantee of safety for any FSA men participating. And now, it seems, another remarkable development is under way: in seven rebel-held areas of Aleppo, most of them under the control of the FSA, civil employees can return to work in their offices, and government institutions and schools can reopen. Students who have become militiamen over the past two years will be disarmed and return to their classrooms.

The CIA is expanding a clandestine effort to train opposition fighters in Syria amid concern that moderate, U.S.-backed militias are rapidly losing ground in the country’s civil war, U.S. officials said.

But the CIA program is so minuscule that it is expected to produce only a few hundred trained fighters each month even after it is enlarged, a level that officials said will do little to bolster rebel forces that are being eclipsed by radical Islamists in the fight against the government.

The CIA’s mission, officials said, has been defined by the White House’s desire to seek a political settlement, a scenario that relies on an eventual stalemate among the warring factions rather than a clear victor. As a result, officials said, limits on the agency’s authorities enable it to provide enough support to help ensure that politically moderate, U.S.-supported militias don’t lose but not enough for them to win.

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said the agency has sent additional paramilitary teams to secret bases in Jordan in recent weeks in a push to double the number of rebel fighters getting CIA instruction and weapons before being sent back to Syria.

The agency has trained fewer than 1,000 rebel fighters this year, current and former U.S. officials said. By contrast, U.S. intelligence analysts estimate that more than 20,000 have been trained to fight for government-backed militias by Assad’s ally Iran and the Hezbollah militant network it sponsors.

The CIA effort was described as an urgent bid to bolster moderate Syrian militias, which have been unable to mount a serious challenge to Assad or match the growing strength of rival rebel factions that have hard-line Islamist agendas and, in some cases, ties to the al-Qaeda terrorist network.

The CIA is “ramping up and expanding its effort,” said a U.S. official familiar with operations in Syria, because “it was clear that the opposition was losing, and not only losing tactically but on a more strategic level.”

A team of chemical weapons experts has made “encouraging initial progress” as it works towards the elimination of Syria’s poison gas arsenal, the United Nations said on Thursday, Oct. 3.

“Documents handed over yesterday by the Syrian government look promising, according to team members, but further analysis, particularly of technical diagrams, will be necessary and some more questions remain to be answered,” a U.N. statement said.

The international team consists of experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague and United Nations personnel assisting them in their work. Last week, the U.N. Security Council unanimously demanded the elimination of Syria’s chemical arsenal.

“The team hopes to begin onsite inspections and the initial disabling of equipment within the next week, but this depends on the outcome of the technical groups established with the participation of Syrian experts yesterday,” the statement said.

The U.N. statement said the technical groups will focus on three tasks: verification of the information handed over by the Syrian government, the safety and security of the inspection teams, and practical arrangements for implementing the work plan.

Agreement on the plan to wipe out Syria’s chemical weapons was reached after President Obama asked Congress to approve air strikes to punish Syria’s government over an August 21 gas attack the United States says killed more than 1,400 people.

There was also optimism in Washington on Thursday about the plan’s prospects, with some U.S. senators saying they felt encouraged after top Obama administration officials spent three hours briefing them on the situation in Syria.

“On the chemical side, at least on the part of the witnesses, there’s some optimism that (the plan) will work,” Senator Carl Levin, a Democrat and the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters.

–Reuters, The Independent