DAMASCUS: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad attended Eid prayers at a Damascus mosque on Thursday, state media reported, in a rare public appearance for the embattled regime head.

Assad led Edul Azha prayers at the Al-Adel mosque with state and ruling Baath party officials as well as a number of Muslim religious leaders and civilians, Syria’s official news agency SANA reported.

In a photograph published on his official Twitter account, Assad appears standing in prayer, flanked by Prime Minister Wael Halaqi and Grand Mufti Ahmed Badreddin Hassoun.

On Wednesday, Assad issued two decrees increasing monthly wages for public sector employees in Syria, in an apparent gesture on the eve of the Eid holiday.

Since the uprising against his rule erupted in March 2011, Assad’s few public appearances have been mostly limited to official prayers on feast days.

Damascus has been largely spared the devastation wrought on other Syrian cities by the civil war, although there has been periodic mortar and rocket fire by rebels entrenched in the suburbs.—AFP

Published in Dawn, September 25th, 2015

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