Syria Eid ceasefire breaks down in battle for Aleppo

Main supply route to Aleppo is almost cut off by Syrian army advance.

A rebel fighter from Al Jabha Al Shamiya (Levant Front) in the compound of the justice palace Aleppo, Syria, Syria on July 5, 2016. Abdalrhman Ismail / Reuters

BEIRUT // The Syrian army advanced within firing range of the rebels’ sole supply route to Aleppo in heavy fighting on Thursday despite the government’s announcement of a ceasefire for the Eid Al Fitr holiday.

Instead of a three-day”regime of calm” — the term the Syrian military uses to denote a temporary truce the downing of arms did not even last one day into the holiday that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

The Saudi-backed rebel group Jaish Al Islam (Army of Islam) said four of its fighters were killed trying to stop the Syrian army from cutting the Castello Road. The road is the only route into rebel-held areas of Syria’s second city and severing it has been a key objective for President Bashar al-Assad’s forces for more than two years. According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Thursday’s advance brought them closer than they have ever been to achieving their goal when they captured a hill only a kilometre away. The captured position gives them a clear line of fire from the ground as well as the air to any traffic moving along the road.

“If government forces can hold their positions there and fight back the counter-offensive, then the opposition neighbourhoods will be completely besieged,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Observatory.

Three people were also killed in the Sayf Al-Dawla district of the city, which is held by government forces.

Aleppo, Syria’s pre-war commercial capital, has been divided since mid-2012 when rebels seized the east of the city confining government forces to the west and has been one of the main battlegrounds of the civil war ever since. Ceasefires have been announced numerous times, but they have never held. and in any case, they never applied to ISIL and the sundry other extremist groups operating in the country.

The ceasefire was scheduled to begin at 1pm, according to a Syrian army statement broadcast on state television on Wednesday. The US secretary of state, John Kerry, immediately welcomed the truce and said talks were already underway with Russia in the hope of extending it. At first, there was a lull in fighting in several provinces, apart from clashes between government forces and Army of Islam in a Damascus suburb. Fighting also continued throughout Wednesday between ISIL and government troops in the cities of Homs and Hama and there were also reports of air strikes on Aleppo.

On Thursday, the French government said it was unrealistic to expect a revival of peace talks from a three-day ceasefire called by the Syrian army. t

A spokesman for the French foreign ministry said, “Without a full and lasting truce, and without full and continuous humanitarian access to all people in need in Syria, it is unrealistic to expect a resumption of negotiations.”

The Eid truce was the first to be declared across Syria since the one brokered in February by international diplomats to facilitate talks to end the five-year-old civil war. That truce largely collapsed and the escalating violence torpedoed the talks.

* Agence France Presse