Assad joins Eid prayers in Damascus

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad attended a mosque in the capital Damascus on Wednesday for prayers marking the end of Ramadan, pictures posted by state media showed.

Assad joined dignitaries including the country's top Muslim cleric Ahmad Badredine Hassoun for the prayers in the Hafez al-Assad Mosque named after his father and predecessor as president.

In previous years, Assad has marked the start of the Eid al-Fitr holiday with rare visits outside the capital.

Last year, he visited the city of Tartus, in the heartland of his Alawaite sect on the Mediterranean coast, where key ally Russia maintains a naval base.

In 2017, he visited the central city of Hama.

Support from Russia, and from Iran and its allies, has enabled Assad's forces to claw back most of the territory they lost in the early years of the devastating civil war which erupted in 2011.