Residents return as truce extended in Syria’s Aleppo

ALEPPO — Displaced families returned home and schools reopened in rebel-held districts of Syria's Aleppo on Saturday after a truce was extended for 72 hours in the battleground northern city.

Residents trickled back into eastern areas of Aleppo, encouraged by a halt in the deadly violence, an AFP reporter said.

More than 300 civilians were killed in two weeks of fighting in the divided city before the truce took hold on Thursday, with regime air strikes on the opposition-held east and rebel shelling of its regime-controlled west.

"I decided to come home after relatives told me it was calm," father-of-six Abu Mohammed said.

"We left because it was carnage here. The air strikes were incredible," said the resident of the rebel-held Kalasseh district.

The international community hopes that a drop in fighting can revive faltering peace talks to end a five-year war that has killed more than 270,000 people and displaced millions.

Schools in Aleppo’s east reopened on Saturday after staying closed for more than two weeks.

“There were many bombings so our parents got scared and stopped sending us to school,” one schoolboy said told AFP.

A monitor reported rebel shelling of areas in western Aleppo but said there were no casualties.

Russia’s defence ministry said the truce had been extended “in order to prevent the situation from worsening” just minutes before an initial 48-hour truce was due to expire.

“The regime of silence in the province of Latakia and in the city of Aleppo has been extended from 00:01 [local time] on May 7 [2101 GMT Friday] for 72 hours,” a ministry statement said.

Night raids 

Violence in Aleppo last month severely threatened a nationwide ceasefire between President Bashar Assad’s regime and non-extremist rebels.

Washington has been working with Moscow to pressure the regime to stop the violence and revive the February 27 cessation of hostilities.

“While we welcome this recent extension, our goal is to get to a point where we no longer have to count the hours and that the cessation of hostilities is fully respected across Syria,” US State Department spokesman John Kirby said.

But fighting rages on elsewhere including in the rebel bastion of Eastern Ghouta outside Damascus and on the outskirts of Aleppo city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

In northern Aleppo province, six people including women and children were killed in night air raids — apparently by the US-led coalition — on two Daesh strongholds, the Britain-based monitor said.

Four Daesh leaders were also killed in the air strikes, it said, and 12 Daesh militants were reported to have died fighting rebels.

In the central city of Hama, a raid by Syrian security forces on a prison failed to end a mutiny involving around 800 mostly political detainees.

Ten guards were taken hostage when violence broke out Monday following an attempt to transfer detainees to another prison near Damascus where executions of inmates have been reported.

The head of Syria’s main opposition group, Riad Hijab, on Saturday called for “intervention from the UN Security Council to guarantee the safety of detainees in the Hama prison”.

Daesh and regime forces clashed near the divided eastern city of Deir Ezzor on Friday, the observatory said.

Iranian casualties 

The violence killed five extremists and around 10 pro-regime fighters, whose bodies Daesh displayed on the walls of a public garden, it said.

Thirteen Iranian Revolutionary Guards advisers have been killed in Syria in recent days and 21 wounded, Iranian media reported on Saturday.

It was the biggest loss of forces within such a short time for Syria’s key regional ally.

Assad on Saturday met Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, state news agency SANA said.

An international outcry has grown over air strikes Thursday on a camp for the displaced near the closed Turkish border that left at least 28 dead including women and children.

Anti-regime activists have blamed the regime, but the Syrian military has denied the accusation.

Russia suggested Syria’s Al Qaeda affiliate Al Nusra Front could have shelled it, while the United States said that the circumstances are unclear.

Hijab on Saturday blamed the Russians for the attack.

Regime aircraft have previously targeted rebels other than Al Nusra and Daesh, which are not covered by the February 27 ceasefire.

Russia launched air raids in support of Damascus in September, and a US-led coalition has conducted air strikes against Daesh in Syria since 2014.

The head of medical charity Doctors Without Borders said on Saturday Syria’s neighbours should keep their borders open to allow people to flee.

“We need to ensure that the border between Syria and other neighbouring countries remains open. It is a lifeline and people should have the right to flee conflicts,” Jerome Oberreit said.