UN envoy: Syria's Assad agrees to holiday ceasefire
International mediator Lakhdar Brahimi says Syrian government, rebels agree to truce during upcoming four-day Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha
International mediator Lakhdar Brahimi said on Wednesday the Syrian government had agreed to a ceasefire in the war with rebels during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.
It was also not clear whether the insurgents would commit to a truce. Rebel sources had earlier told Reuters there was little point if it could not be monitored or enforced. Brahimi's initiative did not include plans for international observers to monitor a halt to hostilities.
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As Brahimi spoke in Cairo, Syrian warplanes were carrying out bombing raids on the strategic northern town of Maarat al-Numan and nearby villages while insurgents surrounded an army base to its east, an activist monitor said.
Brahimi, the joint UN-Arab League special envoy, had crisscrossed the Middle East to push the different sides and their international backers to agree to a truce in the 19-month-old conflict - an effort that included talks with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus at the weekend.
Syrian kid injured in air assaults (Photo: AFP)
"After the visit I made to Damascus, there is agreement from the Syrian government for a ceasefire during the Eid," Brahimi told a news conference at the Cairo-based Arab League.
The holiday starts on Thursday and lasts three or four days. Brahimi did not specify the precise time period for a truce.
Syria's Foreign Ministry said the country's military leaders were studying Brahimi's proposal and would announce their decision on Thursday.
Searching through the rubble in Maaret al-Numan. (Photo: AFP)
"The proposal to halt military operations during the blessed Eid al-Adha holiday is still being studied by the leadership of the army and the armed forces," the ministry said in a statement released after Brahimi announced in Cairo that Syria had agreed the truce. "The final position on this issue will be announced tomorrow."
A previous ceasefire arrangement in April collapsed within days with both sides accusing the other of breaking it.
Whether a ceasefire would be embraced shortly by either side was in question given a battle with huge strategic ramifications being waged in the northwest, with government warplanes striking Maarat al-Numan and nearby villages.
Five people from one family, including a child and a woman, were killed in the air strikes on Wednesday, according to Rami Abdelrahman, head of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Maarat al-Numan has fallen to Assad's opponents, effectively cutting the main north-south highway, a strategic route for Assad to move troops from the capital Damascus to Aleppo, Syria's largest city where rebels have taken a foothold.
Destructions in Homs (Photo: Reuters)
But without control of the nearby Wadi al-Daif military base, their grip over the road is tenuous. Its capture would be a significant step towards creating a "safe zone" allowing them to focus forces on Assad's strongholds in southern Syria.
The rebels say the ferocity of counter-attacks by government forces shows how important holding the base is to the president's military strategy.
Opposition activist footage on Wednesday showed a column of grey smoke rising after a bomb hit the village of Deir al-Sharqi, a few kilometres south of the base.
Refugees flee bombardments
Meanwhile, hundreds of Syrian refugees have poured into a makeshift refugee camp at Atimah overlooking the Turkish border, fleeing a week of what they said were the most intense army bombardments since the uprising began.
"Some of the bombs were so big they sucked in the air and everything crashes down, even four-storey buildings. We used to have one or two rockets a day, now for the past 10 days it has become constant, we run from one shelter to another. They drop a few bombs and it's like a massacre," one refugee, a 20-year-old named Nabil, told Reuters at the camp.
Turkish post near Syrian border (Photo: AP)
The army has lost swathes of territory in recent months and relies on air power and heavy artillery to push back the rebels fighting to topple Assad. Over 32,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which began with peaceful pro-democracy protests before descending into civil war as repression increased.
Human Rights Watch said the Syrian air force had increased its use of cluster bombs across the country in the past two weeks. The New York-based organization identified, through activist video footage of unexploded bomblets, three types of cluster bombs which had fallen on and around Maarat al-Numan.
Cluster bombs explode in the air, scattering dozens of smaller bomblets over an area the size of a sports field. Most nations have banned their use under a convention that became international law in 2010, but which Syria has not signed.
Russia said on Wednesday the rebels had acquired portable surface-to-air missiles including US-made Stingers - a weapon that would help bring down warplanes and helicopters which have bombed residential areas where rebels are hiding.
Opposition activist footage has shown rebels carrying Soviet-made surface-to-air missiles, but footage of Stingers has yet to appear.
In contrast to the Libya crisis last year, the West has shown little appetite to arm the Syrian rebels, worried that weapons would fall into the hands of Islamic militants.
Russia, which has supported Assad through the conflict, sold his government $1 billion worth of weapons last year and has made clear it would oppose an arms embargo in the UN Security Council.
A total of 190 people were killed across Syria on Tuesday, the Observatory said.
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