ISIS – also known as Daesh – and the al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front have called on their jihadi hordes to keep fighting and even intensify attacks in defiance of the peace plan.

Russia and the Syrian Army have vowed to keep pounded the Islamists and other groups they brand as "terrorists".

US and UK-backed rebels in north west Syria report they have also come under attack from hated president Bashar al–Assad's forces.

A Syrian rebel group in the north west said three of its fighters were killed while repelling an attack from government ground forces a few hours after the plan came into effect at midnight local time (10pm Friday in the UK).

A rebel fighter said government forces briefly fired artillery at a village in Aleppo province under the control of the Levant Front – a group under the umbrella of the Free Syrian Army, which has backed the truce.

Nevertheless he said the frontline was quieter than before the agreement took effect.

He said: "There is calm.

"Yesterday at this time there were fierce battles.

"It is certainly strange, but the people are almost certain that the regime will breach the truce on the grounds of hitting Nusra.

There is the sound of helicopters from the early morning."

Fighting raged across much of western Syria right up until the "cessation of hostilities" came into effect but there was calm in many parts of the country shortly after midnight, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Rami Abdulrahman, director of the UK-based group, said: "In Damascus and its countryside, for the first time in years, calm prevails."

Referring to the Latakia base – here Russia's warplanes operate – said: "In Latakia, calm, and at the Hmeimim air base there is no plane activity."

Some gunfire had been heard shortly after midnight in the northern city of Aleppo – and there were some blasts heard in northern Homs province – but it was not clear what had caused them, Abdulrahman said.

The truce was agreed by 97 fighting groups – including the Syrian government and Russian airforce.

But the United Nations quickly warned that the fragile ceasefire will be breached and that a long road to peace lay ahead.

UN official Staffan de Mistura said: "This will remain a complicated, painstaking process".

But he added that "nothing is impossible, especially at this moment”.

Officials hope the truce will pave the way to UN-sponsored peace talks – on March 7 in Geneva.

A spokesman for UN chief Ban Ki-moon: "The only thing that is required is for people to take their finger off the trigger. That is what is being asked.”

(dailystar.co.uk)