Russia said Monday that it would enforce a daily, five-hour truce for a rebel-held enclave outside Damascus, after Syrian government forces allied with Russia killed more than 500 people there over the previous week.
A United Nations cease-fire has failed to take hold in eastern Ghouta, and airstrikes continued and Syrian ground forces fought to push into the besieged area from the west.
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a "humanitarian pause" in eastern Ghouta from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Syria time to "avoid civilian casualties," the Interfax news agency reported, quoting Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. The pause would allow for civilians to evacuate the besieged suburb via a "humanitarian corridor," he said, adding that the temporary cease-fire would begin today.
But similar pauses in fighting across Syria have had varying degrees of success during the country's civil war. And Russia's support for President Bashar Assad, whose forces have pummeled civilians, has raised questions about the viability of the plan.
Civilians caught in the violence mocked Putin's order of a five-hour daily truce.
"It is like legitimizing the strikes on civilians," said activist Firas Abdullah, a resident of Douma, a town in the region where at least 13 members of a family were killed Monday when their home collapsed after an airstrike.
"They will be so kind to grant us a mere five hours when they will not bomb us. Then the rest of the day, they will bomb us as usual. It is like a permission to kill," Abdullah said.
Other Ghouta residents also scoffed at the Russian move, saying it reminded them of a similar one for a besieged eastern district of Aleppo in 2016.
At that time, a humanitarian pause also was implemented by Russia while the Syrian government called on residents to evacuate and for gunmen to lay down their arms. A full ground assault followed, finally bringing Aleppo under government control.
Then, as now, Assad's government and Russia cited the presence of al-Qaida-linked groups as grounds for the sweeping operation.
Regarding the ground offensive in Ghouta, Syrian TV said the fighting, mostly concentrated in an area known as Harasta Farms, also was aimed at al-Qaida-linked militants. The state TV broadcast live video from the town as it was pounded by airstrikes and artillery.
Eyad Srewel, a 27-year-old resident of Douma, said the situation in Ghouta looks more and more like Aleppo.
"I don't know what will happen in the next two minutes. But I know I am not leaving, I am not going anywhere," he said.
At least 34 people were killed Monday by airstrikes and shelling, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The U.N. estimates that nearly 400,000 people live in dire conditions from the siege in eastern Ghouta, which has been under intensive bombing by government forces for weeks.
On Sunday, activists reported a suspected poison gas attack in eastern Ghouta's town of Sheifouniyeh, where at least one person -- an infant -- was killed.
The attack also left several people and paramedics with breathing difficulties, according to the opposition's Syrian Civil Defense, a group known as the White Helmets. The Ghouta Media Center, an activist collective, also reported the incident, saying chlorine gas was used. The Observatory said it could not confirm the reports.
The Syrian American Medical Society, a medical relief organization working with doctors in Syria, said it was the fourth time this year that a chemical weapon was used in Ghouta. The group also said 24 health facilities in Ghouta came under attack over the past week.
Rebels in eastern Ghouta have responded to the heavy bombardment by firing mortar rounds at Damascus, the capital, which has remained relatively safe.
Earlier Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had already pushed back against allegations that Syria's government was responsible for any cease-fire violations, saying the truce would begin only when "all sides have agreed how to implement" it, Reuters reported. Lavrov said the cease-fire does not include a halt to operations against groups linked to al-Qaida in eastern Ghouta or in Idlib province in the north, where the Islamist militants are in control.
Maj. Gen. Yuri Yevtushenko, head of the Russian military's Center for Reconciliation in Syria, said Syrian authorities set up a "humanitarian corridor" for evacuating civilians and would distribute leaflets with specific information. He said the al-Qaida-linked militants and some rebel groups in eastern Ghouta are preventing civilians from leaving and using them as human shields while continuing to shell Damascus.
The political leader of the Army of Islam, the strongest rebel group in eastern Ghouta, called the Russian order "regrettable," saying Moscow sought to circumvent the Security Council's unanimously approved resolution.
"This [Russian] decision nullifies the legitimacy of the United Nations," Mohammed Alloush of the Army of Islam said.
U.N. REACTION
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged Syria's warring parties on Monday to heed a Security Council resolution passed two days prior that calls for a 30-day cease-fire "without delay."
"Eastern Ghouta cannot wait. It is high time to stop this hell on earth," Guterres told the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. Guterres said he welcomed resolutions like the Security Council's but added that they "are only meaningful if they are effectively implemented."
U.N. human-rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said,"We have every reason to remain cautious." He then slammed the international community's failure to stop the "seven years of unremitting and frightful mass killing" in Syria, The Associated Press reported.
Jonathan Allen, the British ambassador to the U.N., said Russia and all other Security Council members are "obliged" to do everything possible to implement the U.N. resolution.
The Russian announcement of five-hour daily pauses in eastern Ghouta "is not compliance, that is not implementation of the resolution passed on Saturday, but it does show that it can be implemented," Allen said.
TURKS' DRIVE PERSISTS
Elsewhere in Syria, in the northwestern region of Afrin, Turkish forces and their proxies continued a month-long offensive against Syrian Kurdish militias. Turkey's state news agency said Monday that Turkish special forces had crossed into Syria in preparation for a "new battle" against the People's Protection Units militia.
Turkey views the Syrian Kurdish forces as potential threats to its security, claiming that they have links to Kurdish separatists who have battled Turkey for decades. But the People's Protection Units is also backed by the United States -- a NATO ally of Turkey -- as a proxy force against remnants of the Islamic State in Syria.
The presence of multiple regional and world powers and their proxies underscore the difficulties of enforcing a truce in Syria.
The office of French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday that he told his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, that Afrin was included in the cease-fire.
Information for this article was contributed by Erin Cunningham, Liz Sly and Anton Troianovski of The Washington Post; and by Sarah el Deeb, Bassem Mroue, Jamey Keaten, Suzan Fraser, Nataliya Vasilyeva and Albert Aji of The Associated Press.
A Section on 02/27/2018