Syrian Army Unilaterally Announces Temporary Ceasefire

The Syrian Army announced a unilateral nationwide ceasefire for 72 hours on Wednesday. According to Reuters, citing a Syrian military official, this ceasefire will be in effect from 1 AM local time on Wednesday until the end of Friday across all of Syria. The official Syrian news agency, SANA, stated that the reason for this temporary ceasefire is the arrival of Eid al-Fitr, the day marking the end of Ramadan, the month of fasting for Muslims. Reuters reported that there are no signs that this temporary ceasefire has been agreed upon or accepted by the Syrian opposition forces and groups engaged with the government of Bashar al-Assad. The armed group Jaysh al-Islam, which is engaged with the Syrian government forces, stated in a statement that despite the announcement of the temporary ceasefire, the Syrian Army and government forces have attacked their positions in the city of Douma. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, based in the UK, also reported exchanges of fire between government forces and the Syrian Army on one side and the opposition forces against Bashar al-Assad's government on the other side in areas of Aleppo province. According to Reuters, Syrian media also reported operations by the Syrian Army against militants of the group known as the 'Islamic State' and other 'terrorist' groups in various areas of Syria. State media in Syria refers to all engaged groups in the country as 'terrorists'. Over the past five years, as Syria has been embroiled in a civil war and exchanges of fire across the country between government forces and opposition groups, there have been multiple attempts to establish ceasefires to find another way to resolve this crisis, but each time these ceasefires have been broken by one of the parties. According to a recent report published by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than 280,000 people have lost their lives in the five-year civil war in the country. According to Agence France-Presse, the new total number of casualties has been reported as 282,283, of which 81,436 were civilians, including 14,000 children and over 9,000 women. In this context, ISIS has taken 900 Kurdish civilians hostage in northern Syria, and 30 civilians have died as a result of retaliatory airstrikes by the Syrian Army.