Beirut // The UN's Syria envoy said the war-battered country is facing a "crucial day" ahead of a deadline of midnight Friday for a partial truce brokered by Moscow and Washington.
Syria's leading opposition group - the Riyadh-based High Negotiations Committee (HNC) - and president Bashar Al Assad's regime have said they will abide by the ceasefire plan, but it has been plagued by doubts after the failure of previous peace efforts. HNC said it was only ready to commit for two weeks given its deep reservations.
The deal, which excludes ISIL and other extremists such as Al Qaeda affiliated Jabhat Al Nusra, marks the biggest diplomatic push yet to help end Syria's violence.
"Tomorrow is going to be a very important, I will say a crucial day," UN envoy Staffan de Mistura said at the UN's European headquarters in Geneva.
Russia said on Thursday the Syria ceasefire process was under way despite what it said were attempts by some US officials to "sabotage" it, while reiterating that Russian warplanes would continue pounding what it called terrorist groups.
"A number of [US] officials in fact attempted to call into question the agreements reached, which were approved by the two presidents," said Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Thursday. "It actually looked like sabotage."
Members of the 17-nation group backing Syria's peace process are to meet in Geneva Friday to work out further details of the agreement, which is then expected to be endorsed by the UN Security Council. There are a hopes a successful ceasefire will lead to the resumption of peace talks that collapsed in Geneva earlier this month.
Mr De Mistura said he will meet journalists around the time the ceasefire is due to take affect "to assess where we are and indicate also the information regarding the resumption of Geneva talks".
The agreement allows military action to continue against ISIL, Al Nusra and other radicalised groups.
The complexities of Syria's battlefields -- where moderate rebels often fight alongside extremists like Al Nusra - have cast serious doubt on whether the ceasefire effort will succeed.
Turkey's position towards Syrian Kurdish forces is another potential spoiler. Prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Thursday that Ankara would not be bound by the ceasefire if its national security is threatened.
"It must be known that the ceasefire is valid in Syria," Mr Davutoglu said. "When it is a question of Turkey's security, then the ceasefire is not binding for us."
It comes as the main Kurdish militia in Syria, the People's Protection Units (YPG) said that Kurdish forces would respect the ceasefire but would fight back if attacked.
"We, the People's Protection Units [YPG], give great importance to the process of cessation of hostilities announced by the United States and Russia and we will respect it, while retaining the right to retaliate ... if we are attacked," YPG spokesman Redur Xelil said on his Facebook page.
Turkey has shelled Kurdish forces in northern Syria, saying the army was responding to incoming fire.
Ankara regards YPG as an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state.
Ahead of the ceasefire deadline, the United Nations managed to boost aid in Syria and expressed optimism on Thursday of more deliveries.
Jan Egeland, a special advisor to Mr De Mistura, said that more than 180 trucks filled with aid had reached six areas under siege from different sides in the past two weeks.
They have brought assistance to just under a quarter of the 480,000 people estimated to be living in 17 besieged places across Syria.
Mr Egeland said permission had been requested to bring aid to besieged parts of Aleppo, Homs and Eastern Ghouta - all hotspots in the country's conflict.
On Wednesday, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) carried out its first humanitarian airdrop in Syria to try to help civilians stuck in the city of Deir Ezzor, but Mr Egeland acknowledged the attempt had run into problems.
The WFP said that of 21 food pallets dropped, 10 remained unaccounted for, four were destroyed and the remaining seven landed in areas where they could not be accessed.
Meanwhile, fighting continued elsewhere in Syria.
Syrian government troops backed by Russian airstrikes recaptured a town in Aleppo province from ISIL militants on Thursday. In the rebel-held suburb of Daraya, opposition activists said the army escalated its attacks, dropping dozens of barrel bombs from helicopters on the devastated town located a few kilometres southwest of the Syrian capital, and sending plumes of smoke rising into the sky.
In Damascus, Al Nusra fired mortars onto residential areas of the capital on Thursday, killing at least one person, state television reported.
The mortars that hit the Mezzeh neighbourhood and Ommayad Square in Damascus come after two days of intensive aerial bombing of rebel-held suburbs, rebels and monitors Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Top US defence officials say Syrian rebel forces are now preparing to go after ISIL's de facto headquarters of Raqqa after retaking the key eastern town of Shaddadeh.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Joseph Dunford, said that the rebels funded by the US are "going down to now isolate" Raqqa and have successfully cut the insurgent group's communication between Iraq and Syria. US defence secretary Ash Carter said the largely Kurdish Syrian Democratic forces circled Shaddadeh and want to sever the northern artery between Raqqa and Mosul in Iraq.
* Agence France-Presse, Reuters and Associated Press
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