AFP, BEIRUT: Efforts intensified for a partial truce in Syria as fighting raged near Aleppo on Monday and after the country suffered its bloodiest jihadist attack in nearly five years of war.
US President Barack Obama and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are expected to speak in the coming days after Washington announced a provisional agreement had been reached on an imminent “cessation of hostilities”.
US Secretary of State John Kerry announced the deal on Sunday, as a string of suicide bombings in areas near a Shiite shrine outside Damascus and in the city of Homs killed at least 179 people.
The Islamic State group claimed responsiblity for both attacks in regime-held areas, which a monitor said killed 120 people near the shrine of Sayyida Zeinab and at least 59 in the Al-Zahraa district of Homs.
The bombings near the shrine marked the deadliest jihadist attack since Syria’s conflict erupted in March 2011, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group.
Kerry said the US and Russian leaders were to speak “in the next days or so” on the terms of implementing the agreement, which would apply to fighting between non-jihadist rebel forces and regime troops backed by Moscow and Tehran.