Airstrikes hit rebel areas in hours before Syrian ceasefire due to begin

Syria faces a crucial day on Friday as combatants in the country’s civil war are asked to meet a deadline to sign up to a ceasefire due to come into force at midnight Damascus time, 10pm GMT.

Fighting was continuing across much of western Syria with 12 hours to go and heavy airstrikes reported on rebel-held areas to the east of Damascus.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 10 air raids hit Douma, in rebel-held Eastern Ghouta, and reported artillery bombardment by government forces in Hama and Homs provinces.

Fighting also resumed at dawn between rebels and government forces in the northwestern province of Latakia, where the Syrian army and its allies are trying to take back more territory from insurgents at the border with Turkey.

The UN Security Council is preparing on Friday to pass a resolution endorsing the US-Russian plan to halt the fighting and naming the key parties to the ceasefire. The cessation of hostilities excludes Islamic State (Isis), the al-Qaida linked Nusra Front and any other terrorist groups named by the UN Security Council.

The intermingling of the Nusra Front with less extreme opposition factions makes the monitoring of the ceasefire highly complex, and open to abuse. The Syrian opposition political umbrella group, the High Negotiating Council, has raised the issue with US and British envoys.

“We are against the terrorism in the form of Isis and Nusra, but we don’t want Russia to target the moderate factions under the excuse of targeting Nusra,” said spokesman Salem al-Meslet.

In one of the few provinces held by opposition forces, Idlib, the Nusra Front works alongside more moderate rebel political and military groups.

Despite the flaws in the cessation plan, the UN’s special envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, is due to address the security council in closed session this afternoon and set out his plans for a resumption of peace talks, possibly on 7 March.

The relatively slow timetable gives time for breaches of the cessation of hostilities to be addressed and confidence built that the cessation will also allow humanitarian access to besieged towns.

The US and Russia are working together to produce a map setting out the physical areas that are excluded from the ceasefire, so in effect setting out territory that Russia and the Syrian government army would be permitted to continue bombing with the de facto approval of the United Nations.

There is also alarm that some areas largely run by the opposition Free Syrian Army may be excluded from the ceasefire. The Assad government has said it believes it will be permitted to hit rebels in Daraya, south Syria.

“If there is any ceasefire without Daraya, then in our view there is no ceasefire, because it is a Free Syrian Army stronghold,” said Issam al-Rayyes, a spokesman for the western-backed Southern Front rebel coalition.

The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said no one could give “100% guarantees” the ceasefire would be implemented and called on the US to end calls for Bashar al-Assad’s resignation as president of Syria.