Rebel groups fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad have yet to publicly declare whether they will respect the ceasefire, but rebel sources have indicated they will.
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It seems everybody is on board for the latest ceasefire in Syria.
A final rocket was sacked from the east into government areas just 5 minutes before 7 pm.
As the night went on, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, reported government air strikes and bombardment in Hama and Aleppo provinces, and shelling of rebel-held areas near Damascus, though it said the violations were not serious.
A cease-fire in the Syrian civil war, negotiated by Russian Federation and the United States, officially took effect at sundown Monday after a weekend of intensified fighting and a vow by Syria’s president to retake the entire country.
The time set for a ceasefire to begin in Syria has passed – beginning what is meant to be a 10-day truce in the war-torn country.
Ahrar Al-Sham has been designated a terrorist organization by Iran, Russia and the United Arab Emirates. “I was checking the time all day, waiting for it to turn 7:00”, said Khaled al-Muraweh, a 38-year-old shopkeeper in the Furqan district of western Aleppo.
In Aleppo’s east, residents roamed the streets to celebrate the start of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.
In 2011, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad released political prisoners in order to calm down his opposition, the most notable being Hassan Abboud, who became the group’s leader.
The US has never previously spoken of approving military operations by Assad, whom they blame for a war that has killed as many as a half-million people.
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Andrew Tabler, who last month called for the United States to go to war against Assad, told Bloomberg News that he thinks “getting the Assad regime to comply with the Russian part and the opposition to comply with the USA part is going to be a real struggle”.
Rebels broke a regime siege of the east in August, but Assad loyalists restored the blockade on September 8.
Moscow and Washington back opposite sides in the conflict.
“There is no mechanism to punish the Assad regime and Russian Federation if they conduct attacks against civilians, continue to refuse humanitarian assistance access to besieged opposition communities, or return to the systematic targeting of US-supported and acceptable armed opposition groups”, the pair wrote in a statement. The agreement, announced Friday after marathon talks between Russian Federation and the U.S., has been billed as the best chance yet to halt Syria’s five-year war, which has left 290,000 people dead.
Kerry said it was too early to evaluate the effectiveness of the cease-fire, and cast no doubt that some violence would be reported “here and there”, according to Reuters.
Mohammed Maznuk said regime aircraft struck Maarat Misriun to the north of Idlib city, killing at least 10 people.
Bombardment rocked the central town of Talbisseh all day, an activist there said, finally quieting down as the truce came into effect.
Yet, as longtime Middle East correspondent Patrick Cockburn points out, it is in the interests of the Syrian government to comply with the agreement because “the United States and Russian Federation will be targeting al-Nusra, the Salafi-jihadi movement which is the main fighting arm of the non-Isis rebel movement”.
Still, other rebel factions showed deep uncertainty.
Rebels on Sunday sent a letter to Washington saying they would “deal positively with the idea of the ceasefire” but listed several “concerns” and stopped short of a full endorsement.
Ahmad al-Saoud, who heads the US-backed Division 13 rebel group which signed the letter, said they had received no response. He’s also a member of the Syrian opposition.
Two jihadist groups – the Islamic State group and the Al-Qaeda affiliated Al Nusra Front – are excluded from the truce and will continue to face air strikes.
But the most powerful rebel groups have shown deep misgivings over the cease-fire deal, which was crafted without their input last weekend in Geneva between the top US and Russian diplomats. However, the group also voiced concerns that the deal will ultimately benefit the Syrian government at the expense of rebel held areas.
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But on Monday, Assad made clear that “the Syrian state is determined to recover every area from the terrorists”.
