Assad makes first public appearance since bomb attack

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad visited the al-Hamad mosque in Damascus marking his first such appearance in public since a bomb attack in Damascus last month killed senior officials within his regime.

BBC and Reuters state that the Syrian president was seen on State TV praying in the al-Hamad mosque in Damascus. The event was the beginning of the Eid al-Fitr festival which traditionally marks the end of Ramadan. Mr. Assad was seen sitting cross-legged on the mosque floor as well as standing to shake hands with clerics. In the sermon Syria was portrayed as the victim of a conspiracy hatched by the United States and Israel which are out to but will not able to -- "defeat our Islam, our ideology and our determination in Syria." It is worth noting that this is the first such public appearance we have seen of Assad since a bombing of the state security HQ in Damascus killed four senior officials, one of them Assad's brother-in-law.