The FSA also claimed that the exclusion of the Jabhat Fateh al Sham group – a former al Qaeda affiliate known as the Nusra Front – could be used by Russian Federation as a pretext to bomb other rebel groups.
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Syrian opposition groups wrote to the United States on Sunday, saying they would “cooperate positively” with a ceasefire but had deep concerns about details of the deal as relayed to them, including an apparent double standard in excluding terror groups, two opposition officials said.
Ahrar al-Sham, one of the largest Islamist groups among the rebels, which has fought alongside Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, criticized the deal in a videotaped speech celebrating Islam’s Eid al-Adha festival, which falls on Monday, without rejecting it outright.
If both sides respect the cease-fire for a period of one week, the USA and Russian Federation have promised to start collaborating in a campaign of coordinated attacks on ISIS and al Nusra, which are the common enemies of all parts involved in the Syrian war.
Jabhat Fateh al-Sham cooperates with or operates in close proximity with a number of rebel groups.
The arrangement has divided rebel factions, who have depended on the might of the powerful al-Qaida-linked Jabhat Fatah al-Sham faction to resist government advances around the contested city of Aleppo.
According to a leader in the ultraconservative Ahrar al-Sham militia, Syria’s Islamist factions have no intention of fully splitting with Jabhat Fatah al-Sham.
“But they will halt their operations on the ground because of the losses they sustained in the battles for Aleppo”.
“The free Syrian factions under the Euphrates Shield banner will announce their commitment to the agreement, of course”, he said.
A high-ranking member of the group, which works closely with former al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham, said in a statement on YouTube that the deal would only serve to “reinforce” the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and “increase the suffering” of civilians.
The ceasefire agreement, which state news agency SANA said the Syrian government has signed onto, would last for 48 hours before being extended.
The militant group, which has evaded being labeled a terrorist organization thanks to US veto in the UN Security council, announced that it will not comply with the ceasefire negotiated by US Secretary of State john Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The ceasefire could then be renewed.
The US has also committed to severing the ties between Jabhat Fatah Al Sham, which Washington and Moscow still consider to be linked to Al Qaeda, and American-backed rebels fighting Mr Al Assad.
To get aid into the battered second city of Aleppo, where rebel-held areas are under siege by regime forces, a demilitarised zone is to be established around the Castello Road into the city.
But that scenario is complicated by the fact that the powerful al-Qaeda-linked faction, Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, remains intertwined with several other factions. At least 62 people – including 13 children – were killed in heavy bombardment on Idlib city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said yesterday. Forty days of fighting in Aleppo has killed almost 700 civilians, including 160 children, according to a Syrian human rights group.
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More than 45 people have died following the intense airstrikes in the Syrian cities of Aleppo and Idlib on Saturday hours after the U.S. and Russian Federation announced plans for the ceasefire.
