Sharjah 24 – AFP: Syria's President Bashar al-Assad on Friday visited the former rebel bastion of Aleppo, including its historic Old City, for the first time since war broke out 11 years ago.
The visit to Syria's second city and previously the economic capital is highly symbolic as Assad's 2016 victory there -- with crucial military support from Russia -- was a turning point in the war.
Assad and his wife "visited Aleppo's historic Ummayad mosque", the Syrian presidency said on the Telegram messaging app.
They also "walked through the Old City's souks, which were open on the occasion of Eid al-Adha", it added, referring to the Muslim feast set to begin on Saturday.
Both sites had suffered massive damage in the fighting.
Before the war, the northern city -- considered to be one of the world's longest continuously inhabited -- boasted markets, mosques, caravanserais, and public baths, but a brutal siege on rebels left it disfigured.
Fighting damaged as much as 60 percent of Aleppo's Old City, according to estimates by the UN's cultural agency, UNESCO.
Earlier Friday, Assad visited a major power plant in the province's eastern countryside to supervise its partial relaunch after war damage.
Assad was also present for the relaunching of a water pumping station, statements from the Syrian presidency said on Telegram.
Electricity networks and other infrastructure across the country were ravaged by the war, which is estimated to have killed nearly half a million people and displaced millions.
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