Reuters, Beirut/Paris :
Syrian government forces and their allies fought insurgents near Aleppo on Monday and jets carried out raids around a nearby town seized by Islamist rebels, a monitoring group said, despite international efforts to reduce the violence.
The United States and Russia, who support rival sides in Syria’s civil war, said on Monday they would work to revive a February “cessation of hostilities” agreement which reduced fighting in parts of the country for several weeks. But warplanes struck the town of Khan Touman, southwest of Aleppo, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Rebels also fought government forces east of Damascus, and jets struck the rebel-held towns of Maarat al-Numan and Idlib.
A recent surge in bloodshed in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city before the war, wrecked the 10-week-old, partial truce sponsored by Washington and Moscow which had allowed U.N.-brokered peace talks to convene in Geneva. The talks, attended by government and opposition delegates including representatives from rebel groups, broke up last month with both sides accusing the other of killing the truce.
Syrian government forces and their allies fought insurgents near Aleppo on Monday and jets carried out raids around a nearby town seized by Islamist rebels, a monitoring group said, despite international efforts to reduce the violence.
The United States and Russia, who support rival sides in Syria’s civil war, said on Monday they would work to revive a February “cessation of hostilities” agreement which reduced fighting in parts of the country for several weeks. But warplanes struck the town of Khan Touman, southwest of Aleppo, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Rebels also fought government forces east of Damascus, and jets struck the rebel-held towns of Maarat al-Numan and Idlib.
A recent surge in bloodshed in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city before the war, wrecked the 10-week-old, partial truce sponsored by Washington and Moscow which had allowed U.N.-brokered peace talks to convene in Geneva. The talks, attended by government and opposition delegates including representatives from rebel groups, broke up last month with both sides accusing the other of killing the truce.
