Push for truce in Syria following worst ISIS attack

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 Shia shrine outside Damascus and in the city of Homs killed at least 184 people.

The ISIS 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 64 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.

Mr 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 but not to ISIS and other extremists.

Announced by top diplomats in Munich earlier in February, the ceasefire failed to take hold by last Friday as initially planned.

Part of a plan that also included expanded humanitarian access, the proposal aims to pave the way for a resumption of peace talks that collapsed earlier in February in Geneva.

The talks had been scheduled to resume next Thursday, but the UN Syria envoy has acknowledged that date is no longer realistic.

Syria’s main Opposition umbrella group, the High Negotiations Committee (HNC), was meeting in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Monday for talks on the ceasefire and peace talks efforts.

Spokesperson Monzer Makhous said the meeting was expected to continue for two or three days.

The HNC has said any ceasefire must include provisions for Russia, Iran and foreign militia forces backing the regime to stop fighting.

Russia launched airstrikes in Syria last September against what it said were “terrorists” but has been accused of bombing non-jihadist rebel forces in support of President Bashar al-Assad, a longtime ally.

Iran has sent military advisors to Syria and the Tehran-backed Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah has deployed at least 6,000 militants to fight with Mr Assad.