US and Russian officials have announced that they have reached an agreement on a ceasefire in Syria, which will involve a cessation of hostilities by all parties, while allowing continued attacks against ISIS and al-Qaeda’s Jabhat al-Nusra.
The details of the agreement were not made public, but indications are they are materially the same as the ceasefire which everyone agreed to in Munich, and which was supposed to begin last week but for some reason simply never happened.
The Munich ceasefire’s announcement led to a pick up in fighting by several factions, all hoping to get some last minute gains before the pause begins. The pause is to start Saturday this time, giving everyone plenty of time for more escalation.
The biggest reason to doubt this ceasefire, beside the Munich deal’s failure, is that it is being presented as more or less a bilateral agreement between the US and Russia, two nations that are both only tangentially involved in the Syrian Civil War, and have limited influence over the various combatants supposedly covered by the ceasefire.