ALEPPO, Syria — Syrian government forces said Aug. 5 that the truce brokered at the Astana 13 talks has been scrapped, accusing the armed opposition of breaking the agreement and not sticking to the Sochi deal whereby rebel groups were to pull their heavy weapons from the de-escalation zone.
The Syrian regime resumed military operations, air shelling rebel-held sites in the buffer zone, cities and towns in the countryside of Idlib, Hama and Latakia. The opposition factions retaliated with a barrage of artillery shells on regime sites and thwarted the regime forces' advance in the al-Ghab Plain of the Hama countryside. On Aug. 6, four civilians were killed in Syrian airstrikes in the town of Murak in the northern Hama countryside.