Fighting continues across the capital’s eastern outskirts, ahead of a nationwide ceasefire brokered between the USA and Russian Federation and due to begin at sunset on Monday.
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The 10-day truce is due to be followed by co-ordinated US-Russian air strikes against jihadist militants.
Ahrar al-Sham, which has an influential presence on the ground in Syria’s brutal war, is the first rebel group to officially react to the deal reached on Friday following marathon talks in Geneva.
But given the failures of the past, some Syrian groups say they are hesitant to embrace the truce agreement – that they have are wary of any agreement that doesn’t cover all besieged areas of the country.
Ahrar al-Sham on Sunday rejected the truce deal sayingin a statement on YouTube that the deal would only serve to “reinforce” the Assad government and “increase the suffering” of civilians.
Nationalist rebel groups, including factions backed by Assad’s foreign enemies, wrote to Washington on Sunday to express deep concerns over the truce.
The airstrikes landed in the rebel-held areas of Idlib in the northwest and Aleppo in the north of the country, according to the monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Fares al-Bayoush, head of an FSA group called the Northern Division, said Russian Federation and Damascus had not observed the last agreement, and the chances of the new deal succeeding were the same as the last one.
The United States and Russian Federation announced a deal Saturday that would establish a nationwide cease-fire starting on Monday, followed a week later by an new military partnership targeting Islamic State and al-Qaida militants as well as the establishment of new limits on the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad forces.
After years of government siege and fighting, its remaining residents and rebel fighters evacuated the town in late August under a deal with the regime, which has since retaken control.
According to the local media, Assad performed prayers of Eid al-Adha at the Saad Ibn Muaz Mosque in Daraya.
Syria’s government, meanwhile, has already indirectly said that it accepts the deal.
The complex deal, arrived at by USA secretary of state John Kerry and Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, envisages an initial ceasefire to allow humanitarian aid into besieged enclaves.
Al Jazeera reported that the Joint Implementation Center will be tasked with mapping out areas under control of the former al-Qaida affiliate Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, previously called Jabhat al-Nusra, and those of USA -backed opposition groups.
“I think that probably at the very beginning of October (U.N. Syria envoy Staffan) de Mistura should invite all the parties”, Bogdanov was quoted as saying.
One strike in the town of Saraqeb hit a civil defense center where civilian rescuers are based, injuring several, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a United Kingdom -based monitor of the war said.
Over a quarter-million people have been killed and around half the population of 11 million has been displaced in Syria civil war, now in its sixth year.
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The official government news agency SANA added that “sources underscored that the Syrian government had been informed of the agreement and agreed to it”, which appeared to imply acceptance. A partial “cessation of hostilities” that brought sorely needed relief to civilians in March unraveled as the government continued to strike targets in opposition areas, including near a hospital and school near Damascus and a marketplace in Idlib province, killing dozens of civilians.
