Zabadani Live Blog

Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr tweets:

Washington Post has a report from Zabadani, the town near Damascus which the army pulled out of after the opposition said a truce was negotiated between the army and opposition fighters earlier this week:

Quite how it happened, why — and whether the calm that has descended will last — are matters of debate. Some here credit the fight put up by the rebels, while others acknowledge that an Arab League mission to monitor the violence appears to have pressured the government into backing down.

"But during a visit Saturday by some of the Arab League monitors, the residents could not hide their joy that Zabadani has, at least for now, become what they are hailing as a “liberated city,” perhaps the first since the armed rebel force began taking shape in the fall.[ ...]

"No guns were on display during the monitors’ visit, but defected soldiers and activists readily admit that they are armed and fighting back.

“The people and the Free Syrian Army have become one hand,” said Amjad Khan, 31, who showed the monitors the damage inflicted on his home by an artillery shell fired by regular army soldiers days before the cease-fire was announced. “They are cooperating together.”

The BBC had a report from the town yesterday.

Syrian forces have pulled back from a rebel-held town under a local ceasefire, residents say, but there was no sign of an overall easing of violence as a month-long mandate for Arab peace monitors in Syria expired.

At least 19 people were reported killed elsewhere, adding to a death toll of more than 600 since the monitors arrived in Syria, where an uprising is hardening against President Bashar al-Assad's authoritarian rule.

Zeina Khodr reports from Beirut in neighbouring Lebanon.