Free Syrian Army groups told the United States on Sunday that they would “cooperate positively” with the ceasefire but expressed concern about the terms of the truce.
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Mr Assad was pictured kneeling at prayer in a bare hall alongside other worshippers, including the state’s grand mufti, in a photo published by state news agency SANA.
“The fighting is flaring on all the fronts of southern Aleppo but the clashes in Amriyah are the heaviest”, said Captain Abdul Salam Abdul Razak, military spokesman for the rebel Nour al-Din al Zinki Brigades.
“People made a decision to go out after hearing there was a truce on Eid”, he said via internet chat.
Key regime ally Iran welcomed the plan on Sunday and called for “comprehensive monitoring” of the truce, particularly along Syria’s volatile borders.
In case the ceasefire holds for at least a week Moscow and Washington would also establish the Russian-US Joint Implementation Centre (JIG) that would serve the goal of “delineation of territories controlled by Al-Nusra and opposition groups in the area of active hostilities”.
After the weekend airstrikes, rebel commander Ahmad Saud, of the US -backed Division 13 brigades, questioned whether the Syrian government can be trusted.
The complex and partly secret truce had little if any impact in or near war-ravaged Aleppo, as fighting raged and fatalities mounted Saturday.
Airstrikes killed more than 100 people, women and children among them, in northwest Syria on Saturday and Sunday just hours after the United States and Russian Federation had announced a new ceasefire agreement, Al Jazeera reports.
Given the failures of the past, some Syrian groups say they are hesitant to embrace the truce agreement – that they are wary of any deal that doesn’t cover all besieged areas of the country.
A ceasefire in Syria brokered by Russian Federation and the U.S. is due to begin at sundown, though there are concerns over the its viability and after a weekend of government raids resulted in scores of civilian deaths.
Turkey is hailing a new U.S.
“We also have reservations about targeting (Islamist rebel group) Jabhat Fateh al-Sham because we think that targeting them will be in the favor of the regime”. They said the agreement neglected besieged areas and called for aid to be taken to all those places without exception.
“As you know this time frame. will give the warplanes of the regime adequate opportunity to cause huge damage in civilian areas and against our military forces”, it said.
He pointed out that the Syrian Government is informed about this deal and it is ready to implement its provisions, and that Moscow and Washington are adhered to pushing all parties to implement it.
Assad’s position will pose a challenge to Russian Federation, who under the agreement must restrain him from striking rebel targets.
In turn, De Mistura welcomed the Russian-US deal, expressing the United Nations readiness to work with all parties to implement it.
War-weary Syrians will be anxiously watching to see if the fighting will stop for a full 48 hours, in line with the hard-fought ceasefire brokered Friday by the United States and Russian Federation. The United States has long held that the Syrian leader can not lead any future government, because of his brutal repression of all opposition throughout his time in power, long before the civil war broke out in early 2011. The latest U.S. -Russian agreement, unveiled Friday after marathon talks in the Swiss city, reflects only those two countries’ intentions, the rebel official said.
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US Secretary of State John Kerry said the deal is a potential “turning point” in the long-running civil war which has killed as many as 500,000 people and displaced millions of others.
