Syria fighting rages as truce deadline nears

Syria’s government and rebel groups have agreed to join a plan to cease hostilities on Saturday, Russia said, while fighting raged on several fronts as combatants sought to gain advantage hours before the agreement was due to start.

The US-Russian “cessation of hostilities” accord is due to begin at midnight (22:00 GMT on Friday). Warring parties had been required to accept by noon.

As the deadline approached, heavy airstrikes were reported to have hit rebel-held areas near Damascus as fighting raged across much of western Syria. The Syrian government has agreed to the plan. The main Opposition alliance, which has deep reservations about the terms, said it would accept it for two weeks.

President Vladimir Putin stressed that combat actions against ISIS, the Nusra Front and other groups, which the Syrian government regards as terrorists, would continue. “I would like to express the hope that our American partners will also bear this in mind ... and that nobody will forget that there are other terrorist organisations apart from ISIS,” he said in Moscow. A Russian foreign ministry official said the Geneva talks could resume on March 7. In New York, diplomats said the UN Security Council would vote on Friday on an resolution endorsing the planned pause in fighting.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring organisation, on Friday reported at least 26 air raids and artillery shelling targeting the town of Douma in rebel-held Eastern Ghouta near Damascus. Rescue workers said five people were killed in Douma. Syrian military officials could not immediately be reached for comment. A spokesman for President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey has serious worries about the plan to halt violence in Syria because of the continued fighting on the ground.

The Nusra Front on Friday rejected the cessation of hostilities in Syria and urged insurgents to intensify attacks against President Bashar al-Assad and his allies. Leader Abu Moha-mad al-Golani said in an audio message that if Syr-ia’s war was not resolved, the consequences would spread to Sunnis in other parts of the region, including the Arabian Peninsula.