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Fragile Syrian ceasefire largely holds
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the High Negotiating Committee (HNC) said Syria’s opposition will stick to the cessation of hostilities despite at least 15 violations, a spokesman for said.
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Meslet said none of those groups had responded to the violations on Saturday.
Hijab said there have been 24 cases of shelling and five cases of ground attacks.
They said they were able to repel the attack but that clashes were ongoing.
The U.S., in its turn, also has provided the Russian Defense Ministry with similar maps and its own list of opposition units, which have agreed to respect the cease-fire.
Analysts have also questioned whether it can be effective on Syria’s complex battlefields, as the truce does not include jihadists from the Islamic State group and Al-Nusra Front.
A rebel fighter said government forces briefly fired artillery at a village in Aleppo province, which he said was under the control of the Levant Front, another group under the umbrella of the Free Syrian Army which has backed the truce.
However, over the course of its campaign in Syria, Russia has been widely accused of also attacking more moderate rebel groups fighting President Assad, an ally of the Kremlin.
“This was subsequently verified and confirmed through several channels including representatives of the Syrian Democratic Forces”, Kuralenko was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies from the Hmeimim airbase.
In Damascus, dentistry student Mehdi al-Ani spent Sunday at his university’s cafe with friends, enjoying the sunshine.
“In Damascus and its countryside… for the first time in years, calm prevails”, Observatory director Rami Abdulrahman said. “The ceasefire will continue, God willing”, he said.
“There’s something unusual in this silence”.
Some 13 million people in Syria are in need of humanitarian aid.
“Let’s pray that this works because frankly this is the best opportunity we can imagine the Syrian people has had for the last five years in order to see something better and hopefully something related to peace”, he said at a news conference in Geneva just as the ceasefire began.
Warplanes, believed to be either Syrian or Russian, bombed seven villages today in the northern province of Aleppo and Hama in the centre, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Some Syrian activists say the target of the air strikes in the north, near Aleppo, was the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.
As recriminations flew, Washington urged patience.
“This will be a hard deal to implement, and we know that obstacles abound”, the official said.
“Even under the best of circumstances, we don’t expect the violence to end immediately. In fact, we are certain that there will continue to be fighting, in part because of organizations like “IS” and Al Nusra”.
United Nations envoy Staffan de Mistura said peace talks would resume on March 7 if the ceasefire agreement holds and more aid is delivered – a key sticking point in negotiations for a truce.
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Israel welcomed the ceasefire but warned it would not accept Iranian “aggression” or the supply of advanced weapons to Hezbollah, the pro-regime Lebanese Shiite militia.