Martin Chulov reports: Inside east Aleppo, talk of ways to bring a lasting peace were long ago discounted. On the eve of the latest deal being implemented by Russia and the US to bring calm to a five-year war, those trying to oust Bashar al-Assad in the opposition half of the city are now more sceptical than ever.

The pact, announced by Moscow and Washington late on Friday, aims to ease in a ceasefire, mainly by phasing out attacks by Russian and Syrian jets, which have pounded opposition areas for most of the past year, and allowing in desperately needed aid supplies.

While a potential end to the bombings was welcomed by militants inside the city, distrust has remained about the caveats – particularly an insistence that al-Qaida-linked elements be disentangled from more mainstream rebels – for much of the deal to kick in.

“Jabhat Fateh al-Sham [the renamed jihadi group Jabhat al-Nusra] are among us, that is true,” said Dawood Mahmudi, a senior rebel based in east Aleppo. “They are here because no one else is. They have kept the city open and have reopened it when it was besieged. Where were Russia and the US then? I’ll tell you where, the US was nowhere, and Russia was bombing us. And now they say ‘trust us’.” [Continue reading…]

The Associated Press reports: Rebel factions in Syria expressed deep reservations on Sunday about the terms of a U.S.-Russian deal that seeks to restart the peace process for the war-torn country, with the leader of at least one U.S.-backed rebel faction publicly calling the offer a “trap.”

The second in command of the powerful, ultraconservative Ahrar al-Sham group condemned the superpower agreement as an effort to secure President Bashar Assad’s government and drive rebel factions apart.

“A rebellious people who have fought and suffered for six years cannot accept half-solutions,” said Ali al-Omar in a video statement.

But the commander and other rebel leaders stopped short of fully rejecting the agreement’s interim cease-fire, which is slated to come into effect in stages beginning on Monday at sunset. [Continue reading…]

The Wall Street Journal reports: Mostafa Mahamed, the director of foreign media relations for Syria Conquest Front [previously known as Nusra Front], declared in written responses to questions that his group had the support of “numerous groups on the ground” despite the ultimatum to other rebels to split from his bloc.

“We expect a united stance of all major players in Syria against this deal. The sincere groups in Syria will never be tools used by external governments that fight their proxy wars,” Mr. Mahamed said. “Make no mistake about it. The U.S. and Russia have agreed to end this revolution.”

He slammed members of the political opposition who accepted the U.S.-Russian agreement to halt fighting as disingenuous representatives of the revolution who occupy “five star hotels and conference halls abroad.” [Continue reading…]

Michael Weiss writes: In the late summer of 2011, President Barack Obama declared the reign of Bashar al-Assad “illegitimate” and told him the time had come to “step aside.” In the early fall of 2015, U.S. officials laughingly dismissed Vladimir Putin’s unexpected direct military intervention into Syria as an accident waiting to happen at Russia’s expense.

Today, Secretary of State John Kerry formally legitimized Assad’s military by way of delimiting its zone of combat; and he welcomed the Russian Air Force as a prospective U.S. partner prosecuting an increasingly complex and muddled war against the so-called Islamic State and al-Qaeda, two separate and competitive terrorist organizations in Syria. Significantly, the latter group often intermingles with U.S.-backed insurgents.

In a tardy press conference in Geneva that most reporters were so sure would never happen they began ordering champagne and pizza, Kerry mapped out this fingers-crossed bilateral plan of action. His remarks were leavened with repeated qualifications and conditional tenses as he described an agreement that must perforce be founded on trust between the United States and Russia would not in fact be based on anything of the sort.

“If, and again I want to emphasize the if –” Kerry began his presser tonight, “If the plan is implemented in good faith, if the stakeholders do the things that are available to them to do and are being called on them to do, this can be a moment where the multilateral efforts at the diplomatic table… could take hold and you could really provide the people of Syria with a transition.”

Except that nobody really believes that. [Continue reading…]

Bassam Barabandi, Hassan Hassan, and Faysal Itani write: The new US-Russian deal to reduce violence and combat extremists in Syria has been met with a great deal of scepticism among Syria watchers. Scepticism is both unsurprising and understandable, given the poor track record of ceasefires in the country. Indeed, senior American officials have indicated the deal is not going to produce calm any time soon, but they hope it will lead to a reduction in violence.

The deal, agreed between Washington and Moscow on Friday, should nonetheless be judged by its details and in the broader context of the war. We were privy to contents of the agreement yet to be publicly released. Also, conversations with senior American officials and rebel leaders offer insights into what the US seeks to achieve from the agreement and how the plan can strengthen the moderate elements within the opposition.

In many ways, the agreement looks good on paper and can in principle strengthen the opposition by constraining violence and bringing relief to civilian populations in rebel-held areas. The danger to the rebels emanates not from the agreement’s terms but from unanswered questions about the role of pro-government militias and the lack of an enforcement mechanism. [Continue reading…]