Scores killed in Syria hours after US-Russian peace deal

Ruinous violence has raged in several parts of Syria, shortly after the United States and Russia reached a breakthrough deal early on Saturday to try to restore peace in Syria.

The agreement, by the powers that back opposing sides in the five-year-old war, promises a nationwide truce from sundown on Monday, improved access for humanitarian aid and joint military targeting of hardline Islamist groups.

But hours later more than 100 people were reported to have been killed in a series of bombing raids and air strikes on rebel-held parts of Aleppo province in the north of the country, and in Idlib in the north-west.

The worst strikes were in Idlib city, the capital of the province of the same name, where warplanes bombed a marketplace, killing at least 58 civilians, many children and women, according to rescue workers and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Locals said they believed the jets to be Russian.

Videos of footage on social media showed rescuers carrying the corpses of a charred child and other victims as other civil defence workers pulled mangled bodies from beneath rubble.

“The market was full of shoppers going to buy presents for their kids, they were all civilians,” said Salem Idlibi, a civil defense worker saying the market was unusually busy ahead of a major Muslim feast on Monday.

Idlib province has endured escalating strikes by Russian planes in recent months, according to international aid workers and residents, destroying scores of hospitals, bakeries and other infrastructure across rebel-held territory.

In Aleppo, at least 46 civilians, including nine children, were killed in a bombardment of opposition-held areas.

Aleppo, a major battleground in the conflict, has seen intensified fighting between government forces and the opposition in recent months, worsening the humanitarian situation there.

The raids on Idlib and Aleppo were believed to have been carried out by Syrian army fighter jets, or those of its main ally Russia. Insurgents said they were planning a counter-offensive.

"The fighting is flaring on all the fronts of southern Aleppo," rebel spokesman Captain Abdul Salam Abdul Razak said.

Razak, of the Nour al-Din al Zinki Brigades, part of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) which is backed by the West, said they were studying the peace deal but feared it merely gave the Syrian army a chance to gather forces and pour more Iranian-backed militias into Aleppo.

The surge in violence came hours after the US and Russia's top diplomats announced the ceasefire agreement after 13 hours of talks in the Swiss city of Geneva.

The accord included a truce to start across Syria at sunset Monday, the first day of the Muslim Eid al-Adha festival. The agreement also paved the way for joint US-Russian raids against armed groups in Syria, including the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group.

US Secretary of State John Kerry, emerging late on Friday in Geneva from talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, said the deal could provide a "turning point" in the conflict if the parties implemented it “in good faith.”

“This requires halting all attacks, including aerial bombardments, and any attempts to gain additional territory at the expense of the parties to the cessation. It requires unimpeded and sustained humanitarian access to all of the besieged and hard-to-reach areas including Aleppo,” he said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that despite continuing mistrust, the two sides had developed five documents that would enable coordination of the fight against terrorism and a revival of Syria's failed truce.

Both sides agreed not to release the documents publicly.

“This all creates the necessary conditions for resumption of the political process, which has been stalling for a long time,” Lavrov said.

A previous ceasefire, brokered by the US and Russia in February, collapsed.