» Syria ceasefire: Rebel groups disagree on whether they’ll honor a U.S.-Russia pact, which takes effect Monday.
Syrian factions fear deal is ‘trap’
Beirut — Rebel factions in Syria expressed deep reservations on Sunday about the terms of a U.S.-Russian deal that seeks to restart the peace process for the war-torn country, with the leader of at least one U.S.-backed rebel faction publicly calling the offer a “trap.”
The second in command of the powerful, ultraconservative Ahrar alSham group condemned the superpower agreement as an effort to secure President Bashar Assad’s government and drive rebel factions apart.
“A rebellious people who have fought and suffered for six years cannot accept half-solutions,” Ali al-Omar said in a video statement.
But the commander and other rebel leaders stopped short of fully rejecting the agreement’s interim ceasefire, which is slated to come into effect in stages beginning Monday at sunset.
The deal hammered out between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva on Saturday allows the Syrian government to continue to strike at al-Qaida-linked militants, until the United States and Russia take over the task in one week’s time.
The arrangement has divided rebel factions, who have depended on the might of the powerful alQaida-linked Jabhat Fatah al-Sham faction to resist government advances around the contested city of Aleppo.
Al-Omar said his group would “refuse the targeting of any faction of our blessed factions” and called on rebels to unify into a single front.
Still, a senior official inside Ahrar al-Sham said rebels would abide by the ceasefire to regroup after a punishing conflict with pro-government forces over Aleppo.
“The Islamist factions and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham will abide by the ceasefire without publicly declaring it,” said the official. “They will announce they are opposed to the U.S.Russian agreement, but they will halt their operations on the ground because of the losses they sustained in the battles for Aleppo.”
Other factions less closely tied to Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, including those backed by Turkish ground forces in the northern frontier area, will publicly commit to the agreement, according to the Ahrar al-Sham official.
Under the terms of the agreement, the U.S. and Russia will coordinate to target the Islamic State group in Syria and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, while rebels and the Syrian government will be expected to stop attacking one another. The deal has received the endorsement of Assad’s government and its key allies — Russia, Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
But that scenario is complicated by the fact that Jabhat Fatah al-Sham remains intertwined with several other factions. It is not clear how these governments intend to distinguish between Jabhat Fatah al-Sham and other allied rebel factions or how they will be able to attack the al-Qaida-linked militants without hitting other rebels as well.
Several previous negotiated ceasefires have all eventually collapsed.