The Kingdom of Jordan, which was given the task of assembling a list of terrorist groups in Syria, reported that a number of countries it approached had handed over lists of 15, 20 or more organizations that they believed should be included in the terrorist category.
The Jordanian terrorist list reportedly includes several organizations the US Central Intelligence Agency has been arming and funding, as well as groups that were brought together in Riyadh in the Saudi-sponsored attempt to create a unified opposition.
Kerry said Friday that the ceasefire would exclude ISIS as well as the Al Nusra Front, Al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, together with "any other group that we might decide at some time to designate."
Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh said he believed there would be "follow-up steps" on the terrorist list, with "countries meeting again to set criteria which will help filter the list."
Jordan reportedly listed along with ISIS and the Nusra Front groups such as Ahrar al-Sham, an Islamist formation founded by a senior Al Qaeda follower, as well as other Islamist formations such as Fajr al-Islam, Jaish al-Islam, Jund al-Aqsa and the Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zenki group.
Even as the UN Security Council was voting on a resolution touted as a road to peace in Syria, developments on the Syrian-Turkish border, long the conduit for ISIS and other Islamist militias as well as for arms and recruits, threatened to turn the conflict into the flashpoint for a global conflagration.
NATO announced Friday that it had agreed to send warplanes and warships to Turkey, a NATO member, to build up the country's air defenses on the Syrian border. "We have agreed on a package of assurance measures for Turkey in view of the volatile situation in the region," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told Reuters.
The buildup comes in the wake of Turkey's November 24 shoot-down of a Russian warplane in the border area, in what was a deliberate ambush prepared in close consultation with Washington.
Meanwhile, the Russian military has deployed its advanced S-400 air defense system at the Syrian airbase in Hmeimim, less than 17 miles from the Turkish border. The weapons system, which is capable of targeting as many as 36 aircraft simultaneously, gives Russia the capacity to fire on any Turkish plane threatening its forces, potentially triggering a direct military confrontation with the nuclear-armed NATO powers.
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