Syrian Ceasefire Holding, But Rebels Complain to UN

While a number of isolated violations were reported over the weekend after the Syrian ceasefire went into effect Friday night, the situation remains overwhelmingly one of calm, with the only significant clashes reported Monday between the Syrian military and Islamist factions who were not party to the ceasefire to begin with.

Which has put the rebels into an extremely sour mood, as they were blasting the US-Russia ceasefire talks as a US “betrayal” to begin with, and are complaining to the UN today of massive airstrikes that appear totally undocumented and unconfirmed by the usual monitors.

UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura went so far as to respond to the rebel complaints by saying the situation could have been “much worse” and that the ceasefire was a major first step toward negotiating an end to the civil war.

That’s a tall order, however, with the rebels seemingly as mad about the ceasefire as they were about the war, and with broad territory held by ISIS and al-Qaeda,, neither of whom are party to the ceasefire nor invited to any peace talks, it’s premature to call the war resolved.

At the same time, Mistura had suggested he’d call for a new round of peace talks if the ceasefire held through this week, and so far, the indicators are promising on that.