DAMASCUS: Syria’s military said on Sunday it had opened a humanitarian corridor to the Kurdish-majority town of Kobani, filled with displaced people, as a UN convoy carrying lifesaving aid headed there.

The aid came as the Defense Ministry announced a 15-day extension of the ceasefire across all fronts of Syrian Arab Army operations, effective at 11 p.m. on Jan. 24.

The ministry said the ceasefire extension comes in support of the US operation to transfer Daesh detainees from prisons in Syria to Iraq.

The Operations Command of the Syrian Arab Army warned the Syrian Democratic Forces and PKK militias against continuing their violations and provocations. 

It also announced the opening of two humanitarian corridors, one to Kobani and another in nearby Hasakah province, to allow “the entry of aid.”

Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, representative of the UN’s refugee agency in Syria, said on X that “thanks to the cooperation with the Syrian government ... a convoy of 24 trucks carrying essential food, relief items, and diesel” departed for Kobani “to deliver life-saving and winter assistance to civilians affected by the hostilities.”

The Syrian Democratic Forces find themselves restricted to Kurdish-majority areas in the northeast and Kobani in the north.

Kobani, which Kurdish forces liberated from a lengthy siege by Daesh in 2015, became a symbol of their first major victory against the terrorists.

The Syrian Petroleum Company said it had begun transporting crude oil from the Jbessa oil field in eastern Hasakah province to the Baniyas refinery on Syria’s Mediterranean coast.

The move follows the arrival of the first shipment of crude oil from Deir Ezzor fields to storage facilities in Baniyas, where it will be processed.