Syria al-Nusra militants reject ceasefire

Al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front terrorist group has rejected a  truce agreed upon by world powers in Syria hours before it comes into effect, calling for more attacks in the war-torn country.

"Strengthen your resolve and intensify your strikes, and do not let their planes and great numbers (of troops) scare you," Nusra leader Abu Mohamad al-Golani said in an audio message aired on Orient News TV on Friday.

On Monday, the United States and Russia said the truce has been planned to take effect in the Arab country on February 27 midnight Damascus time. The Syrian government has accepted the terms on condition that military efforts against the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group and al-Nusra, which are not included in the ceasefire agreement, continue.

The Saudi-backed Syrian opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) also announced that it would temporarily adhere to the truce.

On Friday, members of the Syria Support Group, a 17-nation grouping comprising Moscow and Washington among others, which backs the realization of peace in Syria, are to meet in Geneva to work out further details of the ceasefire agreement. The UN envoy will afterwards announce possible plans for the resumption of UN-backed peace talks for the resolution of the country’s five-year-long crisis.

Three rounds of UN-backed negotiations have been held in Vienna and New York on the situation in Syria since last October. The latest round of peace talks unraveled in Geneva on February 3 less than a week after they started as the HNC refused to attend a meeting with UN special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura.

According to a new report by the Syrian Center for Policy Research, the foreign-sponsored conflict has claimed the lives of over 470,000 people, injured 1.9 million others, and displaced nearly half of the country’s pre-war population of about 23 million within or beyond its borders.

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