Turkey, which has sent dozens of tanks and hundreds of troops into Syria in an unprecedented incursion, on Saturday welcomed a deal agreed by the United States and Russian Federation for a ceasefire in its conflict-torn neighbour.
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Rebels opened a new supply route in early August but regime troops sealed that route on September 8, besieging the east once again.
Insurgents are reportedly planning a counter-offensive.
“The fighting is flaring on all the fronts of southern Aleppo but the clashes in Amiryah are the heaviest”, said Abdul Salam Abdul Razak, spokesman of the rebel Nour al-Din al Zinki Brigades.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government has reportedly given its assent to the two-stage truce.
Unidentified jets bombarded the market in the rebel-held city on Saturday hours after the United States and Russian Federation announced a ceasefire agreement for Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights added.
Beirut- While Syria’s opposition has cautiously dealt with the Russian-U.S. deal concerning a national ceasefire in Syria expected to start Sunday midnight, the regime of Bashar Assad attacked residential areas in Aleppo and Idlib, leaving more than 85 killed and injured civilians who were preparing to celebrate the Eid.
The Syrian government embarked on a wave of intense airstrikes against opposition-controlled areas on Saturday, killing scores of people only hours after the announcement of a new cease-fire deal between Russian Federation and the United States.
“That should put an end to the barrel bombs, and an end to the indiscriminate bombing, and it has the potential to change the nature of the conflict”.
Numerous dead were women and children who ventured out into the market to buy supplies for Eid al-Adha, the Muslim holiday that begins on Monday just as the ceasefire is due to come into force.
“The people can not accept half-solutions”, the group’s deputy leader Ali al-Omar said in the YouTube video to mark the start of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha on Monday.
The landmark deal, reached after marathon talks in Geneva on Friday, could also lead to the first joint military operations by Moscow and Washington – who back opposing sides in the conflict – against jihadists. “In the Damascus province mortar fire has been opened against inhabited areas Haush-Nasri, Jaubar, Kaush-Harabu, the Ibn-al-Walid hospital and the farm in the Khan-aash-Shikh inhabited area”, the ministry said in a daily bulletin posted on its website.
A truce agreed in February and endorsed by the United Nations Security Council has been repeatedly broken by both sides.
“This all creates the necessary conditions for resumption of the political process, which has been stalling for a long time”, Lavrov said.
“The Syrian government has been informed by us about these arrangements, and it is ready to fulfil them”, he added.
If the ceasefire holds for one week, the USA and Russian Federation could start joint operations against jihadists including from the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda’s former affiliate, Ahrar al-Sham, formerly known as the Nusra Front.
The truce is nationwide, but violence is still likely in the northwestern province of Idlib because it’s nearly entirely under the control of a coalition of rebel groups.
The group, a close affiliate of the Fateh al-Sham Front – the de facto branch of al-Qaeda in Syria – would likely not have been a party to the truce anyway.
“If the ceasefire is successfully implemented nationwide, then this is a real, new chance for the humanitarian access so urgently required for hundreds of thousands of people in need”, Steinmeier said.
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Syria’s mainstream political opposition, the Riyadh-based High Negotiations Committee (HNC), said it had not received a copy of the deal and would only react after consulting members.
