Syria called local truces near Damascus and in a northern province on Friday but no halt to combat on the main battlefield in Aleppo, after a surge in fighting the United Nations said showed \u201cmonstrous disregard\u201d for civilian lives.
\nA new \u201cregime of calm\u201d would begin from 1:00 a.m. on Saturday and last one day in the capital\u2019s eastern Ghouta suburb and three days in the northern countryside of the coastal province of Latakia, the army said in a statement.
\nBut by excluding the city of Aleppo, scene of the worst recent violence, the narrow truces were unlikely to resurrect a ceasefire and peace talks that have collapsed this week.
\nIn the worst recent attack, an air strike destroyed a hospital in a rebel-held area overnight on Wednesday-Thursday. The French charity Medecins sans Frontieres, which supported the hospital, said on Friday the death toll had risen to at least 50, including six medics.
\nA Syrian military source said Aleppo was excluded from the newly announced truces \u201cbecause in Aleppo there are terrorists who have not stopped hitting the city and its residents … There are a large number of martyrs in Aleppo, which is why the situation is different there.\u201d
\nRussia\u2019s Interfax news agency quoted the officer in charge of a Russian ceasefire monitoring centre as saying the truces meant all military action would cease in the covered areas.
\nDamascus described the truces as an attempt to salvage a wider \u201ccessation of hostilities\u201d agreement in place since February. That ceasefire, sponsored by Washington and Moscow, allowed peace talks to start but has all but completely collapsed in recent days along with the Geneva negotiations.
\nViolence was \u201csoaring back to the levels we saw prior to the cessation of hostilities,\u201d said United Nations human rights chief Zeid Ra\u2019ad al-Hussein.
\n\u201cThere are deeply disturbing reports of military build-ups indicating preparations for a lethal escalation,\u201d Zeid said in a statement that described a \u201cmonstrous disregard for civilian lives by all parties to the conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018I dread more horror\u2019<\/strong> Air strikes, shelling<\/strong> Source: Alarabiya<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Syria called local truces near Damascus and in a northern province on Friday but no halt to combat on the main battlefield in Aleppo, after a surge in fighting the United Nations said showed \u201cmonstrous disregard\u201d for civilian lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c59-islamic-world"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nThe United Nations has called on Moscow and Washington to help restore the ceasefire to prevent the collapse of peace talks, which broke up this week in Geneva with virtually no progress after the opposition walked out.
\n\u201cThe cessation of hostilities and the Geneva talks were the only game in town, and if they are abandoned now, I dread to think how much more horror we will see in Syria,\u201d Zeid said.
\nThe United States said on Friday that it was in discussions with Russia to renew the cessation of hostilities and was seeking a halt to fighting in Latakia and eastern Ghouta as a test case before trying to extend ceasefires throughout the country.
\n\u201cWe are in touch with the opposition and it is our expectation they will comply,\u201d State Department spokesman Mark Toner said of the Latakia and Ghouta ceasefires.
\nAsked why the United States did not try to get a halt to the violence in Aleppo, Toner said, \u201cIn part it is a recognition that Aleppo is very complex and the fighting around there is indeed alarming. We need to start somewhere and we\u2019re going to start with Latakia and east Ghouta.\u201d
\nAleppo, Syria\u2019s largest city before the war, has been divided for years between rebel and government zones. Full control would be the most important prize for President Bashar al-Assad, who has been fighting to keep hold of his country throughout a five-year civil war. UN mediator Staffan de Mistura has said that up to 400,000 people have been killed.
\nSince Russia joined the war last year with air strikes against Assad\u2019s enemies, battlefield momentum has shifted in the government\u2019s favor.
\nHundreds of thousands of people still live in rebel zones of Aleppo, and the countryside to the north includes the only stretch of the Turkish-Syrian border still in the hands of Assad\u2019s main opponents, Arab Sunni Muslim rebel groups.
\nOpposition groups have accused the government of deliberately targeting civilians so they would abandon the area.
\n\u201cThe aim of what is happening in Aleppo now is to put pressure on us to accept the smallest demands and conditions proposed by Bashar al-Assad,\u201d chief opposition negotiator Asaad al-Zoubi said in an interview with Al Jazeera television.
\n\u201cThe truce which they are talking about today is so the regime can prepare its forces again, especially because it failed to take control of Aleppo.\u201d
\nThe leader of the opposition High Negotiations Committee, Riyad Hijab, wrote to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon accusing the government of \u201chorrifying daily massacres\u201d and \u201cthe besiegement and starvation of cities, towns and villages\u201d. He demanded the UN Security Council force Assad to stop.
\nRebels have targeted government areas with aggressive shelling, which Damascus has said is proof that they are receiving weapons from abroad.<\/p>\n
\nCommenting on the hospital air strike, International Committee of the Red Cross spokesman Ewan Watson told Reuters in Geneva, \u201cIt is unacceptable … But it is up to an investigator and it is for a court to take that decision on whether it is a war crime or not.\u201d
\nLate on Friday, the organization issued a statement calling for an immediate halt in the attacks, saying another four medical facilities on both sides of the frontlines in Aleppo had been damaged extensively. It said dozens of people had died and were injured in \u201canother day of relentless fighting in Aleppo today.\u201d
\nIt said the four healthcare facilities that had been hit were Al Marjah polyclinic, the Bustan Al Qassar polyclinic and Shawki Hill Dialysis Centre and the Ibn Rashid Cardiac Hospital.
\n\u201cThere can be no justification for these appalling acts of violence deliberately targeting hospitals and clinics, which are prohibited under International Humanitarian Law,\u201d Marianne Gasser, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Syria, said in the statement.
\n\u201cPeople keep dying in these attacks. There is no safe place anymore in Aleppo. Even in hospitals. For the sake of people in Aleppo, we call for all to stop this indiscriminate violence.\u201d
\nThe Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group, said air strikes and government shelling had killed at least 142 civilians including 21 children in rebel areas in the past eight days, while rebel shelling of government areas had killed 84 civilians including 14 children.
\nThe Observatory said at least 11 civilians were killed on Friday in rebel areas and 13 in government areas. In the rebel-held zones, more were trapped under fallen buildings destroyed in helicopter strikes.
\nBebars Mishal, a civil defense chief working in rebel-held areas of Aleppo, told Reuters there were a number of air attacks in the morning, many of them around mosques in rebel-held areas. Mishal said one hit a clinic in Aleppo\u2019s Al-Marja district.
\nSyrian state media said a number of people had been killed and wounded and fires started during shelling of government-held quarters in Aleppo, which included a hit on a mosque as people were leaving Friday prayers.<\/p>\n