A Syria ceasefire billed as the “last chance” for peace appeared to be holding on its first full day on Tuesday with residents across the country reporting a quiet night and anxious for aid.
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Secretary of State John Kerry suggested that if the ceasefire holds and if the Syrian government doesn’t do any fighting against the Nusra Front, the U.S. and Russian Federation may launch joint attacks on Nusra. The Syrian army has said it would abide by the cease-fire, but will defend against any violations.
The extremist group was in talks with other rebel factions for a possible merger, a move that could dash Washington and Moscow’s hopes of distancing it from the wider insurgency and sabotage the truce.
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. “We are now just trying to survive the day”.
Russian Federation is a major backer of Assad, while the United States supports some of the rebel groups fighting to topple him.
The United States has backed some Syrian rebel factions battling the government, and is leading a coalition conducting airstrikes against Islamic State strongholds in Syria.
If the truce holds, USA and Russian militaries would begin to coordinate air strikes against Nusra Front and Islamic State militants in an agreed area.
In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrian President Bashar Assad, center, walks on a street with officials after performing the morning Eid al-Adha prayers in Daraya, a blockaded Damascus suburb, Syria, Monday, Sept. 12, 2016. It also marks the first time in months that rebel forces and the Syrian government have halted their fire in all opposition areas, including government airstrikes, granting civilians a brief reprieve from the constant threat of bombing and shelling.
For the moment, “calm is prevailing in all areas”, said Ahmad al-Masalmeh, an opposition activist in the southern province of Daraa – where the 2011 uprising began.
The trucks destined for rebel-held eastern Aleppo, he said, will move once “notification” of their contents is formally provided to the Syrian government, and opposition forces inside the city formally agree to United Nations distribution terms. While having the primary goal of allowing the delivery of humanitarian aid, the ceasefire also stops Assad’s forces from bombing Syrian opposition groups, raising hopes for the revival of peace talks to address the conflict. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, shared that assessment.
He told reporters at the State Department that it was too early to draw a definitive conclusion about how effective the truce will be, and that there would no doubt be some reports of violations “here and there”.
The Syrian government has said it will reject any aid deliveries to the city not coordinated through itself and the United Nations, particularly from Turkey, which has backed the rebels fighting Assad.
If the ceasefire holds for seven days and humanitarian deliveries continue, the US would begin discussions with Russian Federation on the establishment of a joint implementation cell.
The U.N. said it would send its aid trucks into Syria only when it was confident that the ceasefire was being observed and that its workers were not in danger of attack. It said more than 300,000 people have been killed since Syria’s 5½-year conflict began. It said on Tuesday that the dead include 59,000 government troops and more than 86,000 civilians. It is not known, due to security concern, how far into Syria the trucks would go.
Now Syria, where thousands of Muslims lost life, thousands have fled the nation to neighboring nations, is in turmoil for the last 5 long years, has become a safe sanctuary for all anti-Islamic nations and others to target Muslims and reduce Islamic populations in West Asia where most of populations are Muslims. Its last official count was 250,000 dead. It denied a Syrian claim that a warplane and drone were shot down.
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The peace deal is the latest in a succession of attempts to end the fighting in Syria.
