Aleppo witnesses rare calm as ceasefire sets in

DAMASCUS: Calm prevailed across the divided Syrian city of Aleppo on Saturday, the third day of a unilateral ceasefire announced by Russia, but medical evacuations and aid deliveries have yet to take place, a war monitor said. No Syrian or Russian air strikes on the eastern rebel-held side of Aleppo, Syria’s most populous city before the war, have been reported since Russia began the pause in hostilities on Thursday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. But rebels have said they cannot accept the ceasefire, which they say does nothing to alleviate the situation of those who choose to remain in rebel-held Aleppo, and believe it is part of a government policy to purge cities of political opponents. The Syrian army and Russia have called on residents and rebels in besieged eastern Aleppo to leave the city through designated corridors and depart for other insurgent-held districts under a promise of safe travel, but very few rebels or civilians appear to have left. “Nobody has left through the corridors. The small number of people which who tried to leave were faced with shelling around the (corridor area) and could not leave,” said Zakaria Malahifji, a rebel official with the Fastaqim group, which is present in the city. Malahifji said shelling and clashes continued at normal levels in parts of the city. A delegation from the Taliban’s political office visited Pakistan over the weekend, senior officials said on Saturday, for discussions that could include the latest informal effort to restart talks to end Afghanistan’s long war.

The visit comes days after Taliban sources said they had held informal meetings with Afghan and US officials in Qatar, the first direct meetings in more than a year after a fledgling process to halt the 15-year-old conflict collapsed.

Taliban sources said Mul- lah Abdul Manan — brother of the late Taliban founder Mullah Omar — met with US and Afghan officials but there was no breakthrough toward restarting formal talks.

The Taliban delegation will brief Pakistani security agencies on the Qatar meetings — which did not include Pakistani representatives — and complain about the recent arrests of some of its senior commanders in Pakistan, a senior member based in Doha said.

Political office representatives Shahabuddin Dilawar, Jan Mohammad and Abdul

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