BEIRUT (AP) — The leader of an ultraconservative Islamic rebel group in Syria was killed Tuesday in a suicide bombing along with other of its top officials, its allies said, weakening the ranks of the country’s already shaky armed opposition.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack that killed Hassan Aboud and other leading members of Ahrar al-Sham, part of the strongest front that challenged the Islamic State group, which holds wide swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria. But given that forces loyal to President Bashar Assad’s government do not typically use suicide bombers, it appeared likely that forces in the murky mix of opposition fighters in Syria’s 3-year-old civil war were involved.

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