President Bashar Assad has announced that the parliamentary elections in Syria will be held on April 13, 2016. The announcement was made via an official statement released on Monday by Syria’s presidential office. It came just hours after Russia and the US issued a joint statement on cessation of hostilities in this country. The ceasefire is due to take effect at midnight on February 27th. Their statement said the truce did not include ISIS and the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front. The ceasefire announcement followed multiple explosions on Sunday in the Syrian cities of Damascus and Homs which claimed the lives of more than 1oo people. The ceasefire call also comes as government forces made gains around Aleppo in the north