More than 40 fighters of al-Nusra Front (ANF), now known as Fatah al-Sham Front, were killed in airstrikes on their camp in northern Syria late Thursday (January 19th), AFP reported.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it could not specify who carried out the strikes in the western part of Aleppo province, which struck a camp in Jabal al-Sheikh Suleiman.

ANF is not party to a ceasefire that went into effect on December 30th and has sustained major losses in airstrikes in recent weeks. Around 100 of its fighters have been killed since the start of the year, the Observatory said.

Meanwhile, a coalition airstrike on Tuesday killed an al-Qaeda leader identified as Mohammad Habib Boussadoun al-Tunisi near Idlib in northern Syria, the Pentagon said Thursday.

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said Boussadoun was an al-Qaeda "external operations leader" who arrived in Syria in 2014.

Elsewhere, fierce clashes near a key military airport in central Syria on Thursday left at least 18 extremists and a dozen pro-regime fighters dead, the Observatory said.

ISIL has sought for weeks to advance near the Tayfur military airport in Homs province, with intense fighting and airstrikes by the regime and its allies rocking the area on Thursday.

"Twelve regime fighters were killed, including seven in a suicide blast," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP, adding that 18 ISIL fighters also were killed.