Middle East Syria ceasefire goes into effect

A ceasefire across Syria has gone into effect after the government and some armed opposition groups accepted a truce agreement brokered by Russia and Turkey.

Thursday's ceasefire began at 12am local time (22:00 GMT), and, if it holds, will be followed by peace negotiations in Kazakhstan's capital Astana within one month.
Turkey and Russia have pledged to act as guarantors to the cessation of hostilities.
Previous UN-backed attempts to end the Syrian civil war, which started as a largely unarmed uprising against President Bashar al-Assad in March 2011, have failed and often led to fierce fighting.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham group [formerly al-Nusra Front] have been excluded from the ceasefire, according to reports.

 reporting from Gaziantep on the Turkish border with Syria, said "there are high hopes that this [truce] might work, but there are huge potential problems with it. The biggest seems to be this group - Jabhat Fateh al-Sham.
"There are fears that if there are air strikes targeting" Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, which has often fought alongside a number of signatories to the agreement, "then there may be some casualties" among those factions as well.
A statement carried on Thursday by Syria's state news agency SANA said the truce agreement excluded ISIL, also known as ISIS; Jabhat Fateh al-Sham; and "groups linked to them".
Earlier in the day, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that an agreement had been reached on a "countrywide" ceasefire for Syria.
Though the ceasefire is being described as "nationwide", fighting could very well continue in the areas under the control of ISIL and the other groups excluded from the ceasefire - Idlib, in the northwest, and the outskirts of Damacus, for instance.