{"id":25164,"date":"2016-05-07T03:33:41","date_gmt":"2016-05-07T03:33:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/syria-civil-war-aleppo-ceasefire-extended\/"},"modified":"2016-05-07T03:33:34","modified_gmt":"2016-05-07T03:33:34","slug":"syria-civil-war-aleppo-ceasefire-extended","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/syria-civil-war-aleppo-ceasefire-extended\/","title":{"rendered":"Syria civil war: Aleppo ceasefire extended"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{US confirms extension of ceasefire in Syria&#8217;s northern province, with Russia saying it will be valid for 72 hours.}<\/p>\n<p>The US State Department has confirmed an extension of the ceasefire in Syria&#8217;s northern province of Aleppo.<\/p>\n<p>Russia late on Friday announced the extension of the truce in Aleppo for 72 hours starting at midnight on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>State department spokesman John Kirby said that &#8220;the cessation of hostilities has reduced violence in Aleppo, and the United States is committed to keeping it in place as long as possible&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;While we welcome this recent extension, our goal is to get to a point where we no longer have to count the hours and that the cessation of hostilities is fully respected across Syria,&#8221; Kirby said.<\/p>\n<p>The renewed truce extends a 48-hour ceasefire that came into effect on Wednesday at midnight Damascus time and was due to expire at midnight on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Sporadic fighting<\/p>\n<p>The initial ceasefire was supposed to include not only the city of Aleppo but also surrounding districts. <\/p>\n<p>However, fighting has continued at several locations across Aleppo province.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, Syrian rebel group al-Nusra Front captured the strategic village of Khan Touman outside of Aleppo city that could potentially open up new supply routes for rebel-held areas of the city.<\/p>\n<p>The capture also opens up an alternate supply route to rebel-held areas of the city, connecting it to areas of Idlib that are also controlled by the opposition.<\/p>\n<p>Syrian government forces have been trying to encircle rebels in the city by cutting them off from supply routes in the north.<\/p>\n<p>Sources told Al Jazeera that groups involved in the attack included Ahrar al-Sham, Ajnad al-Sham and other factions under the command of the Army of Conquest.<\/p>\n<p>British-based rights group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said more than 73 people had died in clashes in Khan Touman and surrounding villages, which included at least one al-Nusra suicide bomber. <\/p>\n<p>The group put the number of government dead at 30 and rebels killed at 43, with dozens of wounded on both sides.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-12167 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/59e79cb733d147d3a3ae18fd8ba34cb1_18.jpg\" alt=\"A boy rides a bicycle near damaged buildings in the rebel held area of Old Aleppo, Syria May 5, 2016. \" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{US confirms extension of ceasefire in Syria&#8217;s northern province, with Russia saying it will be valid for 72 hours.} The US State Department has confirmed an extension of the ceasefire in Syria&#8217;s northern province of Aleppo. Russia late on Friday announced the extension of the truce in Aleppo for 72 hours starting at midnight on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-25164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25164\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25164"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=25164"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=25164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}