Insurgents said they were planning a counter offensive.
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In addition to those killed, Syria’s conflict has chased millions of people from their homes, contributing to Europe’s worst refugee and migrant crisis since World War II.
The United States and Russian Federation said early Saturday in Geneva they had reached a landmark agreement that would lead to a cease-fire in the five-year-old Syrian civil war and pave the way for broader military cooperation in the battle against the Islamic State and al-Qaeda terrorists.
The official said the deal calls for a week of “reduced violence” starting from sunset on September 12, the beginning of the Muslim Eid holiday.
And both governments had said they were close to a package that would go beyond several previous truces between the Syrian government and armed opposition – all of which failed to hold. The agreement, which will be implemented from Monday evening, will see the Bashar al-Assad regime end military operations in areas held by the opposition. In exchange, Mr. Assad’s air force would halt all operations, and US and Russian airstrikes would target only Islamic State and the Syria Conquest Front.
Kerry acknowledged “confusion” over Jabhat Fateh al-Sham and “legitimate opposition groups” that had led to a “fraying” of a ceasefire that was shepherded earlier this year by the United States and Russian Federation and brought a badly-needed, if temporary, respite to Syrian civilians for several weeks.
With Syrian government airstrikes halted, there’s a potential to “change the nature of the conflict”, Kerry said, noting that the strikes have been the main driver of casualties and migration flows.
Kerry dubbed the deal a “turning point”, according to media reports, and he said that along with Russian Federation, he hopes it “will reduce violence, ease suffering and resume movement towards a negotiated peace and a political transition in Syria”.
The United Nations envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura said Friday that the severe food and water shortages in Aleppo have made the situation even worse.
“The fighting is flaring on all the fronts of southern Aleppo but the clashes in Amiryah are the heaviest”, Captain Abdul Salam Abdul Razak, the military spokesman of the rebel Nour al-Din al Zinki Brigades said.
Getting Assad’s government and rebel groups to comply with the deal may now be more hard as fighting rages around Aleppo, Syria’s most populous city and the new focus of the war.
Mr Lavrov said the joint implementation centre would allow Russian and United States forces to “separate the terrorists from the moderate opposition”. “We are announcing an arrangement that we think has the capability of sticking, but it is dependent on people’s choices”, Kerry said Saturday.
If the truce is successful, Russian Federation and the United States will begin seven days of preparation work to set up a “joint implementation centre”, where they will share information to calculate which opposition groups are in charge of which areas in the war-torn country.
“We have agreed on the zones in which these strikes will be carried out”, said Lavrov. “The Syrian Government has been informed by us about these arrangements, and it is ready to fulfill them”, he added.
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He also said Russian Federation had spoken to the Syrian government which had given its support for the agreement.
