Complex ceasefire deal agreed by Russia and US, which excludes large areas of country, began at midnight local time

A fragile, temporary and partial cessation of hostilities has come into force in Syria after 97 fighting groups, as well as the Syrian government and Russian air force, signed up to a ceasefire.

A monitoring group said early on Saturday that fighting appeared to have stopped across most of western Syria, although the country’s state news agency said a car bomb had exploded on the edge of a government-held central town of Salamiyeh, killing two and wounding several others. No one claimed responsibility.

A senior Russian official said it had grounded its warplanes in Syria and established hotlines to exchange information with the US military in order to help monitor the ceasefire.

A Syrian rebel group called First Coastal Division in the country’s northwest said it came under attack from government ground forces at 4am local time (0200 GMT), leaving three fighters dead in what it called a breach of the truce.

Three fighters from the rebel First Coastal Division were killed while repelling the attack in the Jabal Turkman area near the Turkish border in Latakia province, Fadi Ahmad, the group’s spokesman, told Reuters.

The United Nations security council on Friday unanimously demanded that all parties to the civil war in Syria complied with the terms of the US-Russian deal which took effect at midnight as Friday turned to Saturday local time.

UN Syria mediator Staffan de Mistura, briefing the security council by satellite from Geneva, warned that there would be breaches of the ceasefire and all sides had to be prepared to deal with them in a sober way, and work to identify the cause of the breaches.



Vladimir Putin takes personal charge of Syria ceasefire effort Read more

He said that Saturday would be critical, adding he had “no doubt there will be no shortage of attempts to undermine this process”.

“This will remain a complicated, painstaking process,” he told the council. But he added that “nothing is impossible, especially at this moment.” He said that any military response to the cessation of hostilities would be a “last resort” and “proportionate”.



He also confirmed he will seek to convene peace talks lasting three weeks on 7 March in Geneva.

Lt Gen Sergei Rudskoi of the general staff of Russia’s military said that while Russia will continue air strikes against the Islamic State group and the Syrian franchise of al-Qaida, al-Nusra, it was keeping its aircraft on the ground for now “to avoid any possible mistakes”

The US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, earlier attacked the Russians for continuing to ramp up military attacks hours before the ceasefire.



She warned: “Let us be real. It is going to be extremely challenging to make this work, especially at the outset.”

But, in a passionate address, she added: “If this collapses we lose the most tangible opportunity to relieve the suffering.” She added that everyone at the top of the UN had become broken records, demanding the violence end. “Even a partial de-escalation would make a real difference in the lives of Syrians,” she added.

Fighting had continued in western Syria right up to when the agreement went into effect, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.



Shortly after midnight on Friday, there was calm in many parts of the country, it said. “In Damascus and its countryside ... for the first time in years, calm prevails,” Observatory director Rami Abdulrahman said. “In Latakia, calm, and at the Hmeimim air base there is no plane activity,” he said in reference to the Latakia base where Russia’s warplanes operate from.

Large areas of Syria will be excluded from the ceasefire, according to the maps being issued by both US and Russian sources on Thursday and Friday, due to the Russian insistence that the Syrian government and Russian air force be able to continue attacks not only against Islamic State but also the Syrian franchise of al-Qaida, al-Nusra Front.

European diplomats acknowledged that al-Nusra was intermingled with more moderate rebel forces, especially in northern Syria, making it hard to delineate the zones that will be excluded from Russian and Syrian assault.

But the cessation is probably the most concerted diplomatic multinational effort to reduce the bloodshed since the war began five years ago and is designed to open the way for the start of UN-sponsored peace talks, on 7 March in Geneva. The UN is also gearing up for a major humanitarian relief effort.

Members of the International Syria Support Group met on Friday in Geneva to discuss the monitoring of the complex ceasefire arrangement agreed by the US and Moscow at the beginning of the week.

The cessation of hostilities came into force at midnight local time (10pm GMT), and has the support of the Syrian government led by President Bashar al-Assad, the Kurdish forces in northern Syria, Turkey and the opposition high negotiations committee – the umbrella body that brings together the rebel factions.

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has invested personal capital in the process, which has not been the case with previous peace drives.

The UN security council also passed the joint Russian-American resolution urging all sides to honour the ceasefire and allow humanitarian convoys free and unfettered access.

A White House spokesman, Josh Earnest, said the US did not expect to be able to judge the success or failure of the effort within the first days or even weeks.

“We do anticipate we’re going to encounter some speed bumps along the way,” Earnest said. “There will be violations.”

A spokesman for Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, also acknowledged there had been an increase in violence in the hours ahead of the ceasefire, but claimed this was normal ahead of any ceasefire deadline. Asked how the ceasefire would be monitored, the spokesman said: “The only thing that is required is for people to take their finger off the trigger. That is what is being asked.”

Russia carried out intense raids on rebel bastions across Syria on Friday just hours before the truce was due to take effect, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The head of al-Nusra Front, Mohammad al-Jolani, urged opponents of Assad to reject a ceasefire.

He said: “Beware of this trick from the west and America because everyone is pushing you to go back under the thumb of the oppressive regime.

“Fighters in Syria, willingly arm yourselves, intensify your attacks and have no fear of their troops and their aircraft,” Jolani added.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Russian media published a map of the ceasefire in Syria, with the areas said to be covered by the agreement coloured yellow. Photograph: Yury Barmin

Describing the truce as “shameful”, Jolani said: “Negotiations are the ones conducted on the battlefield.” But it was also reported that al-Nusra Front had withdrawn from six towns in Idlib.

Military analysts said the only ceasefire zones that would be implemented were in northern Hama, Dara’a, al-Ghaab plains, northern Homs and eastern Qalamoun. Government forces are expected to continue their wide-scale offensives in the Aleppo and Latakia governorates.

Syria’s army said this week it would exclude Darayya, an important rebel town near Damascus, from the cessation of hostilities because forces there included al-Nusra fighters.

Turkey has reservations about the viability of the ceasefire plan for Syria due to continued fighting on the ground. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, also signalled that recent tensions between Turkey and the US may be easing as Washington has become more “careful” in its support for Syrian Kurdish YPG fighters.