Syria ceasefire comes into force under U.S.-Russia deal

PanARMENIAN.Net - The first major truce in Syria's five-year civil war has come into effect, BBC News reports.

The "cessation of hostilities" began at midnight (22:00 GMT Friday, February 26) with early reports suggesting that guns had fallen silent over major battlefields.

UN special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said fighting had "calmed down" but one breach was being investigated. In the run-up to the deadline U.S. President Barack Obama warned the Syrian government and its ally Russia "the world will be watching."

Russian jets were reported to have intensified attacks on Syrian rebel positions on Friday.

But as the deadline passed monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said while some gunfire was heard in the northern city of Aleppo elsewhere it was quiet, BBC says.

De Mistura has said that peace talks will resume on 7 March if the truce "largely holds."

He added he had no doubt "there will be no shortage of attempts to undermine this process."

"This will remain a complicated, painstaking process," he told the UN Security Council via videoconference from Geneva. But he added: "Nothing is impossible, especially at this moment."