“The Syrian state is determined to recover every area from the terrorists”, Assad said, using his blanket terminology for all supporters of the insurgency.
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US Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters in Washington it was “far too early to draw conclusions”, but noted that reports he received two hours after the truce came into effect suggested “some reduction” in violence.
In a letter to the U.S., the Free Syrian Army said it planned to “co-operate positively” and respect the ceasefire, but wrote that a lack of enforcement mechanisms and a lack of provision for some of the country’s most besieged areas were worrying. In the southern province of Daraa, a rebel faction said in a statement that it had killed four government soldiers.
The first week of the truce will be crucial.
He also warned that the truce’s success depends on Russian Federation actually putting pressure on al-Assad. But, Assad’s forces can continue air strikes against the Islamic State group and al-Qaida-linked insurgents from the group once known as the Nusra Front.
The United States supports an alliance of rebel groups and Russian Federation supports Assad.
With major defeats from Turkey-backed rebels and US -backed Kurdish forces in northern Syria, IS fighters have been looking for new areas of control.
The cease-fire went into effect at 7 p.m. (1600 GMT) on Monday, but some of the most powerful rebel groups have yet to say whether they will abide by it.
After a week, however, the conflict would potentially enter a dramatically different stage. Perhaps it’s the only one available to a USA policy that swears off, as doomed to failure, the same limited military measures that Russian Federation has employed with success. That will effectively remove Assad’s pretext for war on opposition areas, which he calls a war on terror. “Now he is allowed.to target Nusra”.
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.
A Syrian military source meanwhile said armed groups in Aleppo had sniped on residential buildings, and fired three mortar bombs at a government-held area on the city outskirts.
The deal, announced last week by the USA and Russian foreign ministers, calls for a halt to fighting between the US -backed opposition and Russian-supported Syrian government. Ultimately, talks have run into the question that neither side is willing to budge on – the fate of Assad and his government.
The Obama administration opposes Assad but wants to shift the focus of fighting from the multi-sided civil war between Assad and his many foes to a campaign against Islamic State, an ultra-hardline jihadist group that controls swathes of Syria and neighbouring Iraq.
Later, Kerry’s spokesman said a “primary goal of this agreement, from our perspective, is to prevent the Syrian regime air force from flying or striking in any areas in which the opposition or Nusra are present”.
“It’s an existential question for the regime as it now stands”.
If the truce holds, regime troops will attempt to battle IS in “important areas like the Aleppo countryside and the region east of Homs”, said Syria analyst Faysal Itani of the Atlantic Council in Washington.
Smoke and explosions from the fighting between forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad and rebels rise in the village of Jubata al-Khashab as seen from the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, Sept. 11, 2016. A copy of the letter was given to The Associated Press by an opposition official. The war involves the Islamic State, the Syrian government and multiple Syrian rebel groups.
A number of rebel factions have given a guarded welcome to the deal but expressed reservations about its implementation.
A cease-fire between President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and the rebels began on Monday.
But that scenario is complicated by the fact that Jabhat Fatah al-Sham remains intertwined with several other groups fighting on the ground.
The U.N. offices in Geneva, where de Mistura is based, was closed Monday to honor the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.
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Less than an hour into the truce, residents in the divided northern city of Aleppo said via text message that a government helicopter had dropped explosive cylinders on a rebel-held district.
