Tat continues after Security Council calls for truce
Rebel-held areas Isis uup based in Douma, the ultra-conservaAAhrar al-Sham and llaq al-Rahman groups. yaa'at Tahrir al-Sham, a el coalition affiliated h al-Qaeda, also has a sence in the area. area has been ircled and radically bombarded e 2013, the same year el-eheld suburbs uredu a devastating nn gas attack in 2013 killed hundreds of pple. It has been under vyv bombardment e the middle of last r but the attacks have cched a new devastateevel this month. offensives of the war.
The Security Council voted unanimously to demand the truce to allow for aid access and medical evacuations. Yet while Moscow supported adopting the resolution, Russian UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia cast doubt on its feasibility.
The resolution does not cover militants from Isis (Islamic State), alQaeda, and the Nusra Front.
Baqeri said Iran and Syria would adhere to it. But “parts of the suburbs of Damascus, which are held by the terrorists, are not covered by the ceasefire and clean-up [operations] will continue there,” Tasnim quoted him as saying.
The Syrian Government and Russia deny hitting civilians. Moscow and Damascus have said they seek to stop mortar attacks by militants injuring dozens in the capital.
The two major Islamist factions in Ghouta said they waged fierce battles yesterday on several fronts around the enclave, where troops and rebels have clashed in recent weeks.
Hamza Birqdar, Jaish al-Islam’s military spokesman, said the rebels thwarted attempts by government forces and Iran-backed militias to advance.
Russia was counting on foreign supporters of anti-government forces to ensure that the ceasefire was observed, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow said.
Moscow has blamed Nusra fighters from al-Qaeda’s former Syria branch for provoking the situation in Ghouta. Both main rebel factions in turn accuse their enemies of using the presence of a few hundred jihadist fighters as a pretext for attacks.
Pope Francis, meanwhile, described Syria as “martyred” and called for aid access and an immediate end to violence.
“All this is inhuman,” Francis told tens of thousands of people in St Peter’s Square for his weekly blessing.