United Nations Security Council welcomes Syrian civil war ceasefire
BEIRUT: The United Nations Security Council welcomed a ceasefire in the Syrian civil war, but rebel groups threatened to abandon the truce if violations persisted.
A resolution welcoming the ceasefire, the third truce this year seeking to end nearly six years of war, was adopted unanimously by the 15-member Council, meeting in New York.
The deal, brokered by Russia and Turkey, which back opposing sides, reduced violence, but fire fights, air strikes and shelling went on in some areas.
A twin suicide bombing killed at least two people in the Syrian coastal city of Tartous in an area under government control and in President Bashar alAssad’s coastal heartland shortly after midnight on Sunday, state media and monitors reported.
The attack killed at least two security officers and wounded several other people when two suicide bombers blew themselves up after being stopped, Syrian state media reported, in the first targeting of the area for several months.
Factions belonging to the Free Syrian Army ( FSA) – a loose alliance of militias excluding more radical Islamist groups - said government forces and Iranianbacked Lebanese Hezbollah fighters had been trying to push rebels back in the Wadi Barada valley, northwest of Damascus.
The rebels and political opposition said the government side was massing forces to launch a ground attack in the area. There has been no new announcement by the military since it launched operations in the area last week.
FSA factions said in a separate statement that they would abandon the truce deal if Russia, whose air power has helped President Bashar al-Assad to turn the tide of the war, did not use its influence to halt the Wadi Barada attacks by 8pm. — Reuters
Later, two rebel officials said air raids around Wadi Barada had stopped just before 8pm and that the ceasefire therefore still held, although clashes in the area were continuing.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group confirmed that there had been fighting in the area, source of most of the capital’s water, and said there had also been government shelling in the southern provinces of Quneitra and Deraa.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Friday that rebels had violated the truce 12 times in 24 hours.
Much of Friday’s violence took place along the border between Hama and Idlib provinces in northwest Syria.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani agreed in a telephone call on Saturday to work together to try to end the Syria crisis and make a success of peace talks planned for the Kazakh capital Astana, the Kremlin said in a statement. — Reuters