Agencies, Beirut :At least 20 Syrian government air strikes have peppered the Damascus suburbs after a temporary truce agreement expired, a monitoring group said.Diplomatic efforts continue to pause fighting in SyriaThe strikes targeted areas in Eastern and Western Ghouta after the deal expired at midnight, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Wednesday.The monitor also reported fighting between rebels and government forces in Deir al-Asafir, an area targeted by the strikes in Eastern Ghouta.Separately, the UN Security Council scheduled a meeting on escalating violence in the city of Aleppo in response to an urgent request from the UK and France.”Aleppo is burning … and its civilians are being killed,” Matthew Rycroft, Britain’s ambassador to the UN, told the Security Council after members adopted a resolution demanding an end to attacks on hospitals and medical workers in Syria and other warzones.French ambassador François Delattre said the city had “been under constant bombardment since 2012” and described it as the “martyred centre of the resistance” to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.Meanwhile, US Secretary of State John Kerry has warned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that seeking military gains will not end the civil war.Mr Kerry said there would be “repercussions” if the Syrian government flouted a cessation of violence agreed in February.A resurgence in fighting, particularly in the northern city of Aleppo, has threatened to derail the partial truce.More than 250 people have been killed in Aleppo in the past 10 days.As diplomatic efforts intensified on Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said a unilateral truce declared by the Syrian military could be extended to Aleppo “in the next few hours”.After talks with UN envoy Staffan de Mistura in Moscow, he said Russia was working with the UN and US to include Aleppo in the “regime of calm” that has covered Damascus and Latakia since Saturday.On Tuesday, 19 people were killed by rebel rocket fire in government-controlled areas of Aleppo, monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.State media said a hospital was hit, killing three people and wounding 17.Last Wednesday, an air strike on a hospital in a rebel-held area killed 55 people. The US blamed the attack on government forces.
