Al-Qaida militants in Syria attack besieged Shiite towns

Syria's al-Qaida branch says it has launched an attack against two predominantly Shiite towns in northern Syria.

The Nusra Front says on its Twitter account that it began attacking the towns of Nubul and Zahra today. The towns, with a combined population of about 40,000, have been under siege since the spring of 2013.

A Syrian monitoring group and a Lebanese Shiite television confirmed the fighting, saying the residents are defending the towns, strategically located just off a highway linking the city of Aleppo with the Turkish border.

The fighting is one layer of the complex Syrian civil war and is separate from the battles underway with Islamic State militants.