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A Truce in Syria?

(New Yorker) Dexter Filkins - The "cessation of hostilities" agreement for Syria announced by the U.S. and Russia stipulates that the Assad government and an array of rebel groups opposing it, which includes those backed by the U.S. and its allies, will stop fighting each other. But it does not cover operations involving the two strongest rebel groups: the Islamic State and the al-Qaeda franchise Jabhat al-Nusra. Aid groups said they hoped that the pause in the fighting might allow them to distribute more food and medicine within the country, where 400,000 people are living in areas under siege and are threatened with starvation. Five million more are being fed regularly by the UN. In Syria, with as many as half a million dead and half the prewar population driven from their homes, any agreement, however limited, that offers relief to the suffering ought to be celebrated. Turkey has declared it will not honor the truce with respect to Kurdish forces in Syria, which it sees as a branch of the Kurdish insurgency in Turkey. But the Kurds in Syria have been the U.S.' most effective ally in the fight against ISIS.
2016-03-02 00:00:00
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