48-hour truce reached between Syrian army, rebels in two hotspots

A 48-hour truce was reached late Tuesday between the Syrian army and armed militants in two hotspots in northwest Syria and near the Lebanese border, a monitor group and the Lebanese al-Manar TV reported early Wednesday.

The truce, planned to take effect at 6:00 a.m. local time (0300 GMT), will bring a simultaneous 48-hour ceasefire in the city of Zabadani, northwest of the capital Damascus, and the besieged Shiite towns of Kafraya and Foa in the countryside of the northwestern Idlib province.

It was reached after the Syrian army and Hezbollah advanced into the central part of Zabadani, the last rebel bastion on the Syrian-Lebanese border, said the Lebanese al-Manar TV, mouthpiece of the Shiite Lebanese Hezbollah.

Negotiations will continue between Iranian delegations and Hezbollah on one side and the rebels on the other on two main demands: the government should secure buses for the rebels of the Ahrar al-Sham to leave Zabadani, and in return the rebels in Idlib will allow the entry of food and aid convoys to the besieged Shiite towns, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based watchdog group relying on a network of activists on the ground.

Some of the rebels inside Zabadani had refused to leave the city amid information that Iran has threatened one of the regional countries that supports the rebels, and that if the jihadists stormed Kafraya and Foa, it will destroy all of the surrounding areas of the towns by surface-to-surface missiles from Syrian bases, the Observatory said.

The two towns are among the very few government-controlled areas in Idlib, much of which fell to the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front and like-minded groups in recent months.

The Syrian army backed by the Shiite Lebanese Hezbollah has been on a crushing offensive against the Sunni-led jihadi groups in Zabadani, due to its strategic location near the Lebanese border.

To retaliate against the government troops' broad offensive on Zabadani, several jihadi groups in Idlib have mounted an attack against the Shiite towns of Kafraya and Foa, saying they will keep attacking the towns until the government troops halt their offensive.

The four-year-old Syrian conflict has taken a sectarian turn with an increasing number of Sunni jihadists joining the insurgency against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, who belongs to the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Hezbollah has joined the battles against the insurgency in Syria to keep the radical rebels away from the Lebanese border and to protect the Shiite community in Syria, and its main ally, the Syrian administration. Endi