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Ammon News - BEIRUT (AFP) - Fresh clashes erupted August 2nd between Kurdish fighters and Islamists in the majority Kurdish province of Hasakeh in northern Syria, an activist group reported.

At least 12 members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria were killed early morning, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, adding 22 Kurdish fighters had been killed over the previous few days.

Reports of the latest Kurdish-jihadist violence emerged a day after at least 31 civilians, among them five women and four children, were killed in army shelling and an assault in the northwestern province of Idlib.

Kurdish activists also said there was heavy fighting in villages between Cel Agha and Gerke Lage as radical Islamists shelled Ras al-Ain.

“There was fierce shelling of Ras al-Ain at dawn today [August 2nd],” said Syrian Kurd activist Havidar, who also reported Islamists and Kurds fighting on the edges of the town.

Kurds expelled Islamist groups from Ras al-Ain in mid-July. Clashes have raged ever since in areas that are home to sizeable Kurdish populations.

The fate of some 200 Kurds taken hostage by jihadists Wednesday remains unknown, the Observatory’s Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria has also been implicated in the capture of an Italian priest in Raqqa.

The Observatory expressed fears that Father Paolo Dall’Oglio, who went to meet the Islamist group Monday, had been taken prisoner, calling for his immediate release.

The Observatory “has reports that Father Paolo Dall’Oglio has been missing since Monday afternoon, when he went to the headquarters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria” in Raqqa, it said.

It cited activists there as saying they rallied outside the jihadists’ headquarters to demand Dall’Oglio’s release.

According to the Observatory, Dall’Oglio had gone to meet with jihadist commanders to try to negotiate peace between them and Kurds, and to plea for the release of activists kidnapped by the group.