Turkish Shelling, Syrian Airstrikes Raise Concerns About Ceasefire

10 days into the Syrian ceasefire, calm is prevailing across the majority of the impacted factions’ territories, a success by any reckoning and far beyond what anyone expected. At the same time, incidents continue to raise questions about the scope of the ceasefire.

A Syrian airstrike against a town in the Idlib Province raised a lot of complaints from rebels, though as Idlib is generally held to be under the control of al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front, not a party to the ceasefire, Syria considers such strikes legal. This has been disputed however, as some of Nusra’s partners in Idlib are parties to the ceasefire.

Further east along the Syria-Turkey border, the Kurdish YPG, themselves parties to the ceasefire, are complaining that have come under attack from the Turkish military, hit by artillery shelling in Aleppo Province, which injured several of their fighters.

If confirmed this would certainly be a violation, even though Turkey claimed beforehand they don’t consider the ceasefire to prevent them attacking the Kurds. Previous such incidents, however, have seen the Turkish military claiming their cross-border attacks were aimed at ISIS, themselves not a party to the ceasefire and thus free to be targeted.