Bashar al-Assad is visiting Aleppo for the first time since 2011

DAleppo, Syria’s second largest city and economic capital, has been the scene of deadly clashes since 2012 between the regime’s army and rebel groups and the Islamic State (IS) group on the other.

Government forces were able to retake the city in 2016 with the support of Russian allied forces. Assad and his family “visited Aleppo’s historic Umayyad mosque … and strolled through the souks of the old city that opened during Eid al-Adha,” the Syrian president said in a message broadcast on Telegram.

Earlier in the day, the Syrian president visited the Aleppo power plant and saw the reopening of the water pumping station, two pieces of infrastructure destroyed during the fighting. “Aleppo province has been affected more than other provinces,” Al-Assad said, citing the president’s message, “No major city has suffered as much as Aleppo in terms of water, electricity, services, bombs, destruction and terrorism”.

It was Assad’s first visit to Aleppo since the start of the 2011 revolution that killed around 500,000 people and displaced millions.