{"id":13505,"date":"2012-10-24T05:55:40","date_gmt":"2012-10-24T12:55:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=13505"},"modified":"2012-10-24T05:55:40","modified_gmt":"2012-10-24T12:55:40","slug":"reckless-foreign-interventionists-frustrate-hopes-for-syrian-ceasefire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=13505","title":{"rendered":"Reckless Foreign Interventionists Frustrate Hopes for Syrian Ceasefire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Syria says army still undecided on ceasefire move<\/strong>
\n24 October, 2012 – By Oliver Holmes, Shaimaa Fayed – The Daily Star<\/p>\n

Reuters BEIRUT\/CAIRO: Syria said on Wednesday its military command was still studying a proposal for a holiday ceasefire with rebels – contradicting international mediator Lakhdar Brahimi’s earlier announcement that Damascus had agreed to a truce.<\/p>\n

The statement threw Brahimi’s efforts to arrange a pause in the bloodshed in Syria into even more confusion, as the rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad have given no indication they would be willing to sign up to it.<\/p>\n

A previous ceasefire arrangement in April collapsed within days, with both sides accusing the other of breaking it.<\/p>\n

Brahimi, the joint U.N.-Arab League special envoy, had crisscrossed the Middle East to push the warring factions and their international backers to agree to a truce over the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha – a mission that included talks with Assad in Damascus at the weekend.<\/p>\n

“After the visit I made to Damascus, there is agreement from the Syrian government for a ceasefire during the Eid,” Brahimi told a news conference at the Arab League in Cairo.<\/p>\n

Within an hour, Syria’s Foreign Ministry said the proposal was still being studied by the armed forces’ leadership. “The final position on this issue will be announced tomorrow,” a ministry statement said.<\/p>\n

The holiday starts on Thursday and lasts three or four days. Brahimi did not specify the precise time period for a truce.<\/p>\n

Nor did the initiative include plans for international observers and rebel sources had earlier told Reuters there was little point if it could not be monitored or enforced.<\/p>\n

The two sides are now locked in a battle with huge potential ramifications in the northwest.<\/p>\n

Syrian warplanes carried out bombing raids on Wednesday on the strategic northern town of Maarat al-Numan and nearby villages while rebels surrounded an army base to its east, an activist monitor said.<\/p>\n

Five people from one family, including a child and a woman, were killed in the air strikes, according to Rami Abdelrahman, head of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.<\/p>\n

Maarat al-Numan has fallen to the rebels, effectively cutting the main north-south highway, a strategic route for Assad to move troops from the capital Damascus to Aleppo, Syria’s largest city where the insurgents have taken a foothold.<\/p>\n

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Syria says army still undecided on ceasefire move 24 October, 2012 – By Oliver Holmes, Shaimaa Fayed – The Daily Star Reuters BEIRUT\/CAIRO: Syria said on Wednesday its military command was still studying a proposal for a holiday ceasefire with rebels – contradicting international mediator Lakhdar Brahimi’s earlier announcement that Damascus had agreed to a more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[2000],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13505"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13505"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13507,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13505\/revisions\/13507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}