Syria’s military declared the three-day “regime of calm” – a term it uses to denote a temporary truce – on Wednesday to cover the Eid al-Fitr holiday celebrated by Muslims at the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.
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The Syrian army said it would observe a 72-hour truce to mark the Islamic festival of Eid al-Fitr.
The truce is the first to be declared country-wide since the one brokered by foreign powers in February to facilitate talks to end the five-year-old civil war.
That agreement, which excluded militant groups such as the Islamic State, sharply reduced violence across the country for weeks.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported government and rebel shelling in northern Aleppo and air strikes in the countryside north of the city on Wednesday.
Islam Alloush, a spokesman for the Jaish al-Islam fighting group, said government forces moved in on the suburb of Mayda, seeking to block a rebel supply line, while the opposition fought back to regain a number of areas previously captured.
There was no immediate reaction from Syria’s opposition groups battling President Bashar Assad’s government.
The truce between the army and rebels is the first since February, but opposition groups and a monitoring organisation say little has changed on the ground.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said worldwide powers are working to forge an agreement for a longer lasting, enforceable nationwide ceasefire, “that could change the dynamics on the ground”, he said, speaking at a news conference in Tbilisi, Georgia.
State TV showed him praying in a Homs neighborhood that has been the scene of many auto bombs over the years.
According to an AFP photographer in the government-controlled parts of the city, there had been intense rebel rocket fire throughout the night on the western neighbourhoods.
The pro-government forces have also continued the bombardment of the besieged suburb of Douma, he added. Its capture brings the Syrian government closer to its long-standing objective of encircling rebel-held areas of the northern city.
“This is a fake ceasefire”, said Mahmoud al-Shami, an activist based in Aleppo.
State-run news agency said three people were killed late Wednesday when rebels shelled a government-held district in Aleppo.
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In the central Hama province, activist Hassan al-Amari said warplanes targeted the town of Hawash in the Sahal al-Ghab plains, where hard-line rebels, including the Nusra Front, seized territory from the government in April. The region’s plains lie just east of Assad’s coastal stronghold of Latakia.
