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Syria Truce Hangs in Balance Amid Attacks, Lack of Aid
The cease-fire brokered by the US and Russian Federation went into effect a week ago, but both sides have been accused of violating it on dozens of occasions.
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The military said insurgents had failed to adhere to the agreement. The Syrian military had previously said it would adhere to the weeklong cease-fire until midnight Sunday.
Air strikes hit four rebel-held areas of the embattled Syrian city of Aleppo and a southern village on Sunday, which are the first raids since a ceasefire was announced by the USA and Russian Federation last week.
It was unclear Monday evening whether the agreement – which has brought a brief respite to the war-torn country – would truly collapse on the ground. The Syria truce deal brokered by the United States and Russian Federation is set to expire this evening at 7pm (1600 GMT/Midnight Malaysian time), a senior military source in Damascus told AFP. However, he also repeated calls for the sustained delivery of humanitarian aid to Aleppo and other besieged communities. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
The UN also wants to deliver to other hard-to-reach areas in Syria, but says it has not received necessary permissions from the Syrian government to proceed.
Kerry expressed frustration with the touch-and-go cease-fire.
The UN has said it does not have sufficient security guarantees from all sides to deliver the supplies.
United States ambassador Samantha Power said Moscow’s request for Sunday’s emergency meeting was a “stunt”, while her Russian counterpart Vitaly Churkin accused the U.S. of violating agreements that it would not target army positions. “This was justified by the will to avoid the US-Russian (ceasefire) deal”.
The aid has been sitting at the border for almost a week, as the patchy seven-day ceasefire was punctuated by fighting and air raids, with all sides accusing each other of violating it. “We have not had seven days of calm and of delivery of humanitarian goods”, Kerry said.
Vitali Churkin, the Russian ambassador who called the meeting, said it was suspicious the incident had happened just two days before U.S. and Russian forces were supposed to begin co-ordinated strikes against the Islamists and that it had left a “very big question mark” over the peace deal.
But from the start, the truce has been beset by difficulties and mutual accusations of violations.
Secretary of State John Kerry says the week-old truce in Syria brokered by the USA and Russian Federation is “holding but fragile” despite persistent violence and a lack of aid deliveries to besieged communities.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists inside Syria, put the toll higher, saying the US-led coalition struck army positions in Tharda mountain and a nearby artillery division, killing 90 troops and wounding 110.
“The amount of shelling by rebel groups against positions of Syrian government troops and of residential areas is increasing”, said defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov.
“Hundreds of thousands of people in Aleppo are waiting for this truce to allow aid to enter the city”, he said, adding that there are aid trucks still waiting on the Turkey-Syria border.
The Syrian military statement placed the blame squarely on the rebel groups.
Moadamiyat Al Sham mayor Bassam Karbuj said about 7,000 food parcels were distributed and that the army would take full control of the town once remaining rebels are bussed out “in the coming days. But the armed terrorist groups didn’t take it seriously and didn’t commit to any of its articles”, the military command statement said.
He claimed on Monday that the Syrian government forces have observed the truce unilaterally, despite the continuing rebel violations.
“The Assad regime and their allies have transformed forced sectarian cleansing into a clear and systematic policy that deprives civilians of their livelihoods, starves them to death, and then pushes them into “agreeing” to leave their homes and neighborhoods”. “Instead it worked to undermine it with organized violations during the week as well as preventing aid from reaching Aleppo”, the group said in a statement sent to reporters.
A USA official said the US military believed reports that about 60 Syrian troops were killed.
The opposition reported 254 violations by government forces and their allies since the truce started on September 12 and a senior Syrian opposition official declared the cease-fire “clinically dead”.
The deal was further strained by US-led coalition strikes on Syrian army positions in the east that killed dozens of government soldiers.
Russian Federation said the United States was being obstructive and deceptive regarding the airstrike by coalition warplanes on the Syrian military position.
Two Danish F-16 fighter jets took part in the coalition attack that reportedly killed scores of Syrian soldiers by mistake on Saturday.
Intense air strikes over the past 24 hours have hit Islamic State controlled areas near Deir al Zor city, the Observatory and Syrian state media said.
The attack came a day after strikes by the US-led coalition mistakenly killed dozens of Syrian government troops, prompting a diplomatic firestorm.
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The uncertainty cast doubts on a U.S.