The Guardian reports: Syrian air force planes have launched dozens of attacks from Damascus to Aleppo as the truce declared for the Eid al-Adha Muslim holiday ended as it began – in violence.

Opposition activists reported 48 air strikes in a few hours while the UN and Arab League envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, admitted that the four-day ceasefire had failed. “The situation is bad and getting worse,” he told reporters in Moscow after talks with the Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. Russia is Syria’s closest and most supportive ally at the UN.

Air raids were reported overnight from the Damascus suburbs of Qaboun, Zamalka and Irbin and described by residents as the heaviest since planes and helicopters first bombarded pro-opposition parts of the Syrian capital in August.

In Jermana, near Damascus, a car bomb killed 11 people, including women and children, and injured 50 others, Syrian state media reported, blaming “terrorists” for deliberately breaching the truce.

Fighting was also reported from Homs, Idlib and Deir al-Zour on the Iraqi border.

The truce, for Eid al-Adha, the Muslim feast of the sacrifice which marks the end of the annual hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, began on Friday morning. An estimated 400 people have died during it. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 110 people were killed on Sunday alone. Of those, 39 were civilians, 34 armed opposition fighters and 35 members of the state security forces, said the UK-based group. [Continue reading…]