A US-Russian brokered ceasefire for southwest Syria is holding hours after taking effect, in the latest international attempt at peace-making in the six-year war.
The United States, Russia and Jordan reached a ceasefire and "de-escalation agreement" this week with the aim of paving the way for a broader, more robust truce.
The announcement came after a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit of major economies in Germany.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitoring group, said "calm was prevailing" on Sunday with no air strikes or clashes in the southwest since the truce began at noon.
"The situation is relatively calm," said Suhaib al-Ruhail, a spokesman for the Alwiyat al-Furqan rebel group in the Quneitra area.
Another rebel official, in Deraa city, said there had been no significant fighting. It was quiet on the main Manshiya front near the border with Jordan, which he said had been the site of some of the heaviest army bombing in recent weeks.
A Syrian official indicated Damascus approved of the ceasefire deal, describing the government's silence over it as a "sign of satisfaction".
"We welcome any step that would cease the fire and pave the way for peaceful solutions," he said.
A witness in Deraa said he had not seen warplanes in the sky or heard any fighting since noon.
However several ceasefires have crumbled since the onset of the conflict.
With the help of Russian air power and Iranian-backed militias, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government has put rebels on the back foot over the past year.
The wide array of mostly Sunni rebels include jihadist factions and other groups supported by Turkey, the United States and Gulf monarchies.
Earlier talks between the United States and Russia about a "de-escalation zone" in southwest Syria covered Deraa province on the border with Jordan, nearby Sweida and Quneitra which borders the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
"We negotiated a ceasefire in parts of Syria which will save lives," Trump said on Twitter on Sunday. "Now it is time to move forward in working constructively with Russia!"
The deal marks the first peace-making effort in the Syrian war by the US government under Trump, appearing to give him a diplomatic achievement at his first meeting with Putin.
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