ASSAD PROTESTS SPREAD ONE WEEK AFTER CEASE- FIRE IN SYRIA BEGINS

Less than a week into a tenuous cease- fire in Syria, anti- government protests spread Friday across much of the territory held by rebel forces that have been fighting to overthrow the regime of President Bashar Assad.

Images posted to social media show large crowds with banners and speakers using megaphones, reportedly in Azaz; in Maarat al- Numan, where several wellknown rebel leaders from Idlib were photographed; and in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, among many other sites.

Photos on social media showed banners with the slogan “The revolution continues.” Another, “Sykes- Picot 1916; Lavrov- Kerry 2016,” compared the post-World War I agreement by world powers that set the modern borders of the Middle East to talk of federalizing Syria by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

According to Norwegian- Emirati Syria watcher Iyad El- Baghdadi, there were 104 protests across rebel- held Syria on Friday.