Fighting reported in Syrian capital, Damascus

The request for the extra United States forces had come from Turkey, said Pentagon spokesman Adrian Rankine-Galloway.

The Kremlin also said it was using its influence to try to ensure the Syrian army fully implemented the ceasefire agreement and that it hoped the U.S. would use its own influence with rebel groups too.

Under that agreement, a cessation of hostilities was slated to begin on Monday, unfettered humanitarian aid was to flow to Syria and, if both of those conditions were met for seven days, the United States and Russian Federation were to set up a joint committee to coordinate strikes against the Islamic State and the Nusra Front militant groups, both of which are excluded from the ceasefire.

SANA says there were 23 violations of the truce deal in Aleppo on Thursday alone.

Maj. -Gen. Igor Konashenkov, in a statement issued on Friday, cast doubt on the rebels’ “ability to comply” with a U.S. -Russia-brokered cease-fire, which came into effect earlier this week.

In a further sign of rising tensions, Washington told Moscow on Friday that potential military cooperation in Syria will not happen unless it pressured the Syrian government to allow the delivery of aid into besieged areas.

Turkey is complaining because Syrian Kurdish fighters in the border town of Tel Abyad in Syria are still flying US flags they had hoisted earlier.

Syrian army soldiers and fighters from allied popular defense groups wrested control over the road on July 26.

“We expect decisive measures from the American side, aimed at influencing the armed groups under their control to rigorously carry out the September 9 agreement”, Lieutenant-General Viktor Poznikhir said.

U.S. Department of Defense chief spokesman Peter Cook earlier said that Washington has asked the Syrian Kurdish partner forces not to fly the American flag on their own but was unaware of this particular instance.

One U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said initial reports appeared to confirm the incident involving a small group of U.S. forces.

Outside the scope of the truce, the United States is leading an worldwide bombing campaign against Islamic State fighters who control territory in both Syria and neighbouring Iraq.

“Mutual recriminations are being made”, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call on Friday. He says that Moscow hopes that “our American counterparts will do the same”. Syrian government forces would pull back from the battle-lines as soon as the rebels did, he said.

Peskov says Russian Federation believes that “progress is happening although with certain hiccups”.

OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke says “it is my understanding” that United Nations officials are waiting for assurances that conditions are safe enough for two convoys of 20 trucks each to proceed from Turkey to eastern Aleppo.

Two aid convoys destined for Aleppo were still stuck on the Turkish border after several days while the sides argued over how the supplies were to be delivered.

“There seems to be little pullback by both sides [Syrian government and rebels] on that road to allow this aid in”, Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford, reporting from Gazientep on the Turkish border with Syria, said.

The fragile cease-fire that has held for more than four days across Syria faced it’s most serious test Friday morning as fierce fighting erupted just east of the capital city, Damascus.

Rebels said government forces had pushed into Jobar, which is the neighborhood closest to central Damascus in the sprawling, opposition-held area of East Ghouta.

Aid deliveries are part of a US-Russia deal that imposed the ceasefire.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the fighting is concentrated in the area of Jobar, next to Qaboun.

He added that fighters from al Qaida and Islamic State, who are excluded from the ceasefire agreement, are absent in that part of Damascus.

Mikhail Bogdanov said in an interview with RIA Novosti that Assad’s future is “purely Syrian business”.

Assad has been accused of war crimes in the Syrian civil war and his opponents inside and outside the country have insisted that his departure is a prerequisite for a peace settlement.

Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said aid was expected to arrive in the rebel-held city of Aleppo.

With the U.S. -Russian brokered cease-fire for the war-torn country holding for its third straight day, calls intensified to have the government permit aid access to besieged opposition areas.

Aleppo-based activist Bahaa al-Halaby said humanitarian conditions in the eastern neighborhoods of Syria’s largest city are deteriorating. But Russian officials said the Syrian army on Friday moved its heavy weapons back to the road, after the opposition failed to withdraw their arms simultaneously.