Fierce clashes between Syrian government forces and rebels have broken out around a military base near the northern town of Maaret al-Numan in the “first violation” of a ceasefire, an activist group has said.
“Violent clashes started around 0730 GMT around the Wadi Deif base. The army responded by bombing the neighbouring village of Deir Sharqi. It is the first violation of the ceasefire,” Rami Abdul Rahman, the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told the AFP news agency on Friday.
He said that among the rebel fighters were members of the Islamist Al-Nusra Front, an armed group that had already indicated it would not abide by the truce, agreed by President Bashar al-Assad’s government and the main rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) for the four-day Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.
There were no immediate indications from either the regime or the FSA that they considered the ceasefire had been violated.
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