BEIRUT: Syria rebel groups rushed reinforcements to their battle with ISIS in rural Aleppo and said Monday they were turning the tide against the surprise assault by the jihadis.

Pro-opposition sources said a Tunisian commander with ISIS was one of those killed in the fierce fighting, which erupted one day earlier and took place around the village of Soran Azaz.

Rebel militias of all stripes – from the Free Syrian Army, Islamist groups and Al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front – have all sent fighters to counter against the new offensive by ISIS.

Opposition supporters claimed that the ISIS campaign came on the heels of a series of rebel gains in next-door Idlib province against regime forces, and was designed to disrupt further progress by the rebel militias.

The Syrian Islamic Council, which represents several dozen religious groups and is based in Turkey, called on the various rebel groups to fight against ISIS, which it accused of seeking to head off a rebel push against government forces in Aleppo.

It and Aleppo-based rebel groups accused ISIS of being in league with the regime of President Bashar Assad.

The opposition-in-exile National Coalition complained the international anti-ISIS coalition, which began airstrikes against the jihadis in Syria last year, was failing to target the group in Aleppo province, and demanded the establishment of “safe zone” protected from airstrikes by the regime.

Regime aircraft have been bombing the areas where ISIS and rebel groups are clashing, but to the benefit of the jihadis, the Coalition said.

“We don’t want to see the Assad regime’s air force become the air force of the terrorist ISIS,” the Coalition’s president, Khaled Khoja, told a news conference in Istanbul.

“This is happening now in Aleppo, as the regime bombs the fighters in areas that ISIS is trying to seize. The regime’s planes are openly working for ISIS – they bomb, and ISIS attacks,” he said.