The agreement has been accepted by the Syrian government and, far more reluctantly, by most of the groups that oppose it, with rebel forces saying that the deal was skewed in favour of President Bashar al-Assad.
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Secretary of State John F. Kerry hailed the accord announced in Geneva on Saturday as “a last chance.to save a united Syria”. The Syrian army has said it would abide by the cease-fire, but will defend against any violations.
The truce does not cover the jihadist groups Islamic State in Iraq and Syria or Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, a group formerly called the Nusra Front which was al-Qaeda’s Syria branch until it changed its name in July. The first week will be crucial: During that time, all fighting between Assad’s forces and the rebels is to stop, although Assad’s forces can continue airstrikes against IS and al-Qaida-linked militants.
Another nagging question revolves around whether America could be held responsible if a Russian airstrike – approved by the U.S.as part of the military cooperation that is at the heart of the deal – kills civilians. But if the violations remain minor, after seven days the United States and Russian Federation will move on to a new phase of together targeting the forces of the Islamic State and those allied to al-Qaida. The United States and Russian Federation coordinated a partial ceasefire in February, but violence soon resumed.
“Some 400 000 Syrians will benefit from it”, he said. As the cease-fire came into effect, Kerry urged Syrian rebels to distance themselves from al-Qaida-linked militants.
One of Syria’s most powerful factions, Jabhat Fatah al-Sham’s battlefield alliance with other insurgent groups makes it hard for the United States to target them without the danger of inflicting harm to other opposition groups. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak publicly about the talks.
The UN said Tuesday it had readied help for civilians in Syria’s ceasefire but aid convoys would not roll until security was assured. It is a project to unify the factions on the battlefield. The coalition has been behind stunning attacks in the northern provinces of Aleppo and Idlib in recent months that left scores of Syrian government troops as well as allied Iraqi militiamen and members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group dead since the February truce collapsed. They added that “a major near-term challenge is that neither the Nusra Front nor the Assad regime (nor ISIS, for that matter) is strongly motivated to cooperate with a new cessation of hostilities”.
A new ceasefire in Syria brokered by the USA and Russian Federation appeared to be holding today, despite near-immediate violations when it took effect the night before, and fresh flareups along the country’s border with Israel.
The worldwide community’s first goal is to deliver aid to civilians in Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city before the war, which has been divided for years and where the opposition area is under siege.
Rami Abdurrahman from the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there were minor truce violations in central Hama province.
The Syrian civil war has killed more than 300,000 people and forced more than 5 million to flee the country, spawning an worldwide refugee crisis. He said United Nations officials are awaiting assurances that the drivers will be “unhindered and untouched”.
The UN got the regime’s approval on September 6 to deliver aid to almost one million people this month, including to the rebel held eastern part of Aleppo, which has been encircled by government forces.
Syrian state news agency SANA said rebels fired three shells at the government-held neighborhood of Mallah in Aleppo.
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Humanitarian agencies are closely watching developments, poised to distribute much-needed aid to besieged areas, but say they are awaiting security guarantees to proceed with the delivery. It said two Syrian soldiers were killed and another wounded in a separate attack in Aleppo. It also reported shelling near the Castello road, northwest of the city, and the Ramouseh area in the south – both main arteries leading to Aleppo.
