Syria’s Assad in Eid prayers at Daraya, seized from rebels last month

Syria’s embattled president, Bashar al-Assad, performed the Eid al-Adha prayers on Monday at a mosque in Daraya, the Damascus neighborhood that stood out against the regime for four years, only to surrender last month and return to government control.

The official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) said that Assad and his entourage performed the Feast of Sacrifice prayers at Daraya’s Saad Ibn Muaz Mosque.

“A number of state officials, ministers, MPs and Muslim scholars also observed the prayers, which were led by sheikh Adnan al-Afiouni, Mufti of Damascus and its countryside,” the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported.

Daraya was the scene of one of the regime’s most brutal sieges. The rebels who had held out against indiscriminate barrel bombings and bloody battles with regime forces pulled out of the suburb last month, dealing a blow to the resistance against the regime.

“Together with you Mr. President we will rebuild modern Syria and make it more beautiful, powerful and developed than it has been,” the prayers leader, Sheikh al-Afiouni, told the congregation in a sermon, according to SANA.