Syrian Truce Mostly Holds at Start of Second Day

A cease-fire brokered by the US and Russian Federation brought calm across much of Syria on Tuesday as residents of the northern city of Aleppo awaited an expected aid shipment.

Russian Federation and the US unveiled the latest effort to secure a cease-fire in Syria after talks in Geneva on Friday.

Some 6 million people have been forced from their homes inside Syria’s borders, almost one million of whom have been uprooted in the past six months alone.

It also marks the biggest bet yet by the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama that it can work with Russian Federation to end a war that President Vladimir Putin transformed a year ago when he sent warplanes to join the fight on Assad’s side.

What happens if it holds: The first week of the truce will be crucial.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported minor violations by both government and rebel forces in different parts of the country, but no deaths. The rest include rebels, foreign fighters, Hezbollah militants, defectors from the Syrian army and others. It was not immediately clear if the rebels involved in the fighting were parties to the ceasefire.

The Syrian army has said the truce will be applied throughout Syria for seven days, but that it reserves the right to respond decisively to any violation by armed groups. Observatory Director Rami Abdulrahman said the fighting could be a serious threat to the ceasefire if it did not stop.

But that scenario is complicated by the fact that Jabhat Fatah Al Sham remains intertwined with several other groups fighting on the ground.

“We are not optimistic about this ceasefire”, an activist for the Aleppo Media Center told CNN as explosions rang out in the background.

In remarks in Washington, D.C. on Monday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called the ability to deliver aid into the city of Aleppo “literally the difference between life and death for tens of thousands of people”.

A ceasefire negotiated by the United States and Russian Federation is just hours old, and many believe its efficacy will only become clearer in the coming hours.

He indicated that, under the terms of the US-Russia agreement, the aid should begin to flow within the first 48 hours of the ceasefire. DRAMATIC IMPROVEMENT In Geneva, de Mistura said there had been allegations of sporadic and geographically isolated incidents.

“There will undoubtedly be reports of a violation here and there …”

Under the truce that went into effect at sundown Monday, Assad’s forces are no longer supposed to bomb Syria’s opposition, Kerry said.

“Trucks are waiting to cross the border and they have not crossed the border yet”, Marwa Awad, a spokesperson for the World Food Programme in Damascus told Middle East Eye. “We are eagerly hoping and expecting the government to issue them very soon”.

In the largely rebel-held northwestern province of Idlib, where air strikes killed 13 people on Monday, an activist reported a quiet night too. Security will be determined by mutual consent of government and opposition forces. During a span of just eight days ending earlier this month, more than 100,000 people were forced to flee intense violence in the central city of Hama.

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. A Turkish official said the trucks were mostly carrying food and flour. But the Syrian government said that it would turn away any aid deliveries that had not been coordinated with Damascus and the U.N, according to state media. “TECHNICAL ISSUES” A second senior US official said there were some “technical issues” to be resolved before the trucks could proceed.

One of the more immediate goals of the U.S. The divided city of Aleppo is of particular concern.

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In other developments, the Syrian military announced that it had allegedly shot down two Israeli aircraft – a warplane and a drone – near the Israeli-controlled part of the Golan Heights, which used to be Syrian territory until 1981. The Israeli military quickly denied the claim.