Guns mostly quiet for Syrian cease-fire
Guns were mostly quiet in battle-scarred Syria on Tuesday as an uneasy cease-fire among most combatants appeared to be holding despite claims of some breaches.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said some air attacks and shelling were reported in the first hours of the truce, but said the "majority of Syrian provinces have witnessed silence" since the cease-fire began Monday night.
"No civilians recorded to be dead in the first 15 hours of the cease-fire," the group said.
In Aleppo and the suburbs of Damascus, two hotbeds for violence during the five-year civil war, correspondents for Agence France Presse reported quiet.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu accused the Syrian government of breaking the cease-fire immediately after it went into effect, the Associated Press reported. Cavusoglu expressed hope that all parties will work to make the cease-fire permanent and that efforts “cannot be one-sided.”
Syria military in turn accused "armed groups" of breaching the cease-fire. The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency cited shelling and sniper fire in and around Aleppo and Homs, a western Syrian city that also has been the site of unrelenting warfare.
The cease-fire applies to all armed groups in Syria except the Islamic State and Nusra Front, which recently changed its name to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham as it attempts to distance itself from al-Qaeda. The group has fought alongside U.S.-backed rebels who have balked at breaking off the military partnership.
The cease-fire deal was reached last week but opened under a cloud of doubt after at least one rebel group did not commit to the plan, and Syrian President Bashar Assad vowed to "retake every area from the terrorists." U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, however, said Assad would be held accountable by Russia for any breaches.
If all goes well, after seven days of reduced violence and increased humanitarian aid access, plans call for the U.S. and Russia to work together to defeat the Islamic State and Nusra. The Syrian air force would withdraw from those areas.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said the plan did not call for a complete grounding of the Syrian air force, but rather to keep it away from U.S.-backed rebels and civilian targets. The U.S., which has demanded Assad's ouster, will not coordinate strikes with the Assad regime, Kirby said.
Assad, who has the support of Russia and Iran, has vigorously rejected calls from the West to step down.