U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says both sides may have violated Syria's cease-fire, but added that no breaches have been significant enough to shatter the three-day-old "cessation of hostilities." Speaking alongside German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Kerry said a U.S.-Russian-led task force is investigating all claims of violations. Kerry said he spoke by telephone with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the two are committed to dealing with reported transgressions. Kerry welcomed the news that aid has reached thousands of Syrians. Still, he criticized Syrian troops and officials for blocking some deliveries and stealing from others. He said the government should "try to show some measure of decency, if that is even possible." At the same time, a senior official from Syria's main opposition group said on Monday that the fragile international attempt to halt nearly five years of fighting was in danger of collapse because of attacks by government forces. The cessation of hostilities drawn up by Washington and Moscow faced "complete nullification" because Syrian government attacks were violating the agreement, the official of the Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee said. Yet, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the pause in the fighting was largely holding, despite some incidents that he hoped would be contained. Speaking to reporters Monday in Geneva, Ban confirmed receiving a letter from the HNC complaining of continuing violations by the Syrian government and its Russian and Iranian backers. The letter sent Sunday urged the U.N. to help "specify the territory covered by the truce to prevent hostilities." Riad Hijab, who heads the Saudi-backed HNC, said in the statement to Ban that Russian, Iranian and government forces have not stopped hostilities since the cease-fire went into effect. Hijab said there had been 24 instances of shelling and five of ground attacks. He added that Russian warplanes carried out 26 airstrikes on Sunday alone, targeting rebels that are abiding by the truce. The cessation deal does not include jihadi groups such as Islamic State and the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front. Russia, backing the Syrian government with air power, has made clear it intends to keep bombing those groups. Kerry said that he agreed with Lavrov to intensify work on a mechanism to ensure any strikes in Syria would solely target Islamic State or Nusra Front. An aide to Saudi Arabia's defense minister said on Monday that defense ministers from the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State had discussed the possibility of a Syrian ground incursion two weeks ago in Brussels. "It was discussed at the political level, but it wasn't discussed as a military mission," Saudi Brig. Gen. Ahmed Asseri told Reuters. "Once this is organized, and decided how many troops and how they will go and where they will go, we will participate in that." The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said the truce was largely holding, with casualties greatly reduced compared with before the agreement took effect. But Syrian forces have made some gains. The Observatory reported they had taken territory near Damascus on Monday after a battle with the Nusra Front and other Islamist rebels. Syrian government forces also regained control of a road to the northern city of Aleppo after making advances against Islamic State fighters. Aid trucks carrying non-food items such as blankets on Monday entered Mouadamiya, a suburb of Damascus under siege by government forces, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent said. The United Nations and other agencies hope to deliver aid to more than 150,000 people in besieged areas over the next five days. Aid deliveries are a main opposition demand ahead of the planned resumption of peace talks in Geneva on March 7. Gloomy assessment Asaad al-Zoubi, head of the HNC's delegation to the peace talks, gave a gloomy assessment of the truce. "We are not facing a violation of the truce. ... We are facing a complete nullification," he said on Al Arabiya al Hadath TV. "I believe the international community has totally failed in all its experiments and must take real, practical measures toward the [Syrian] regime," Zoubi said, without elaborating. He said there were no signs of any preparations for the March 7 peace talks. Talks in Geneva in early February collapsed before they started, with rebels saying they could not negotiate while they were being bombed. HNC spokesman Salim al-Muslat said the truce was a step in the right direction, but a mechanism was needed to stop such violations and encourage negotiations. "There has to be a power that really stops what Russia and what the regime is doing," Muslat said in a television interview with Reuters in Riyadh. Syrian officials could not immediately be reached for comment on allegations that government forces were violating the cease-fire. The government has said it is abiding by the agreement. But a Syrian Foreign Ministry official accused Saudi Arabia of trying to undermine the cessation of hostilities agreement by saying there would be a "plan B" if it failed. He did not give details of the plan, which is believed to include military action. Russia on Monday also rejected any suggestion of a plan B, which has been alluded to by Kerry. "We have received indications that attacks, including by air, have been continuing against zones controlled by the moderate opposition," French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said in Geneva on Monday. "All this needs to be verified." The HNC said that there have been further violations by Russia and Hezbollah, both allies of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Meanwhile, Lebanon's Hezbollah terrorist group said it had recovered the body of a senior commander, Ali Fayyad, who was killed during fighting in the region. The Shiite group fighting alongside Assad's forces in Syria said the body of the commander, locally known as Haj Alaa, was recovered Sunday night in an operation in which Syrian and Hezbollah special forces took part. Fayyad was a Hezbollah veteran who had led major battles against the Israeli army in south Lebanon. Lebanese media say he was among four Hezbollah fighters killed in Aleppo last week. On the ground, rebels said the violence was below pre-cease-fire levels in some places and little changed in others. Col. Fares al-Bayoush, head of a Free Syrian Army group called the Northern Division, told Reuters: "The airstrikes are heavy today, especially by Russian planes." Abu al-Baraa al-Hamawi, a fighter with the Ajnad al-Sham group in northwestern Syria, said the government had shelled a number of villages. "It is regular bombardment, no change. The regime after the truce is as it was before."
Credit: Reuters
He went on to say that the goal should be making the truce stick, not finding ways to undermine it.
