Syrian Army declares truce over, rains bombs on Aleppo

Syria’s armed forces said Monday that a weeklong cease-fire brokered by the United States and Russia was over, blaming rebels for the failure of the truce.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said meanwhile that the terms had not been met for a key aspect of the deal — US-Russia cooperation against extremists in Syria.
In a statement carried by state news agency SANA, Syria’s Army said a freeze on fighting it had announced last week had ended, blaming rebel groups it said “did not commit to a single element” of the truce deal.
“Syria’s Army announces the end of the freeze on fighting that began at 7 p.m. (1600 GMT) on Sept. 12, 2016 in accordance with the US-Russia agreement,” the statement said.
The truce “was supposed to be a real chance to stop the bloodshed, but the armed terrorist groups flouted this agreement,” Monday’s army statement said.
Syria’s armed forces “exercised the highest degree of self-restraint while facing violations by terrorist groups,” it said.
Kerry — who brokered the deal along with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov — said in New York that Russia had failed to meet its side of a deal to enforce the truce, but that Washington was willing to keep working on it.
Under the terms of an agreement, the US military would set up a joint cell with Russian forces to target Syrian extremists if the cease-fire held. Kerry had earlier insisted the cease-fire was “holding but fragile.”
He said on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly that American officials were “meeting now with the Russians in Geneva. That process is continuing and we’ll see where we are in the course of the day.” However, Russia’s Defense Ministry appeared to bury hopes that the truce would last past Monday night.
“Considering that the conditions of the cease-fire are not being respected by the rebels, we consider it pointless for the Syrian government forces to respect it unilaterally,” Lt. Gen. Sergei Rudskoy said in a briefing.
Meanwhile, artillery shelling and airstrikes hit rebel-held parts of Aleppo, less than two hours after Syria announced the end of the truce.
The raids hit Sukkari and Amiriyah, two eastern neighborhoods of the battleground city.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, also reported that shells were raining down on the northern city.

Source: Arab News