A few days ago, the CNN team attended a protest where people carried signs reading, “The ceasefire is a betrayal of our martyrs”.
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“To compare, 144 were killed – 70 soldiers, 36 civilians, and 38 rebels – on Friday, on the eve of the truce”, Abdel Rahman told AFP.
The source said that the statements made by Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir are nothing more than an echo of what his masters in Israel and the United States say, and that his talk of a “plan B” regarding the current developments in Syria is a mere delusion in the heads of the Saudi regime, because the presence of such a plan would imply that the Saudi kingdom can think and plan, while Al Saud are known to be unthinking tools in the hands of Israel and the United States who do as they are told.
“We have agreed to the temporary truce as a response to honest global efforts aiming to ease the suffering of the Syrian people”, the letter read, which accused the Syrian government and its allies of violating the ceasefire two dozen times and killing 29 people.
The cessation of hostilities agreement, the first of its kind since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, is a less formal arrangement than a ceasefire. Terrorist groups like ISIS and the al-Nusra Front are not part of the agreement and ongoing attacks have been reported.
The Nato chief said Russian air strikes had “mainly targeted” non-jihadist rebels rather than the Islamic State group, which has been targeted by a US-led coalition.
There had been concerns before the ceasefire went into effect over the weekend that the blurry lines between al-Nusra and the rebels could endanger the ceasefire.
Turkey is strengthening its military positions on the border with Syria and is concentrating armored vehicles in the area, Lieutenant General Kuralenko said, denouncing these moves as “obviously provocative steps that could lead to a breakdown of the ceasefire and the peace process in the Syrian Arab Republic”.
Since the cessation of hostilities came into effect government and Russian warplanes have struck areas in several western provinces of Syria, according to monitors. In both cases, the Observatory had no immediate word on casualties.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault earlier on Monday called for a meeting of the task force overseeing the cease-fire in Syria after receiving reports that the fighting continues.
Washington urged patience from all sides to give the truce a chance to firm up. “But what’s worrying is that senior members of the Syrian opposition are warning that if these violations continue… the truce could really collapse”.
“Even under the best of circumstances, we don’t expect the violence to end immediately”.
Turkish artillery hit as many as 10 Islamic State targets inside Syria on Sunday, a military official said on Monday.
The Center aims to assist armed groupings in Syria in concluding ceasefire agreements, maintain the truce regime, control its observance and organize the delivery of humanitarian cargoes to civilians.
Aid trucks carrying nonfood items such as blankets on Monday entered Mouadamiya, a suburb of Damascus under siege by government forces.
The United Nations says it plans to deliver life-saving humanitarian assistance to about 154,000 people living in besieged locations inside Syria over the next five days.
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Wider conflicts in the region such as Turkey’s continuing feud with its more than 20-million-strong Kurdish minority, or the growing enmity between Sunni and Shia Muslim states and communities in the region, posed long-term, structural threats to the Syrian peace deal, he noted.
