The Syrian Army today announced that it is ending the Syrian ceasefire, seven days after it began, citing repeated attacks by US-backed rebels over the past several days, and amid rising tensions over a US attack on an army base over the weekend that killed at least 83 troops.
Syrian officials said the growing number of attacks made the ceasefire unsustainable, and Russian officials appeared to concur, with Lt. Gen. Sergei Rudskoy saying it was “pointless” for the Syrian government to respect the ceasefire unilaterally while they were getting attacked so much by the rebels.
The first reports of Syrian airstrikes around Aleppo began not long thereafter, and as usual it’s not the combatants but the bystanders taking the brunt of the strike, with warplanes hitting some aid trucks belonging to the Red Crescent, as they were attempting to deliver the aid to the Nusra Front-held half of the city.
The ceasefire was only intended to last a week in the first place, but was extended two additional days after getting off to such a promising start. Things started getting worse in the lead-up to the weekend, and during the weekend started soaring. Even then, violence was generally down throughout the week, giving the population a brief respite.