DAMASCUS — President Bashar al-Assad of Syria appeared Sunday at a small mosque in Damascus, with state television showing him completing his prayers for an important Muslim holiday alongside some but not all members of his inner circle.
It was only the second time that President Assad has been shown on television since a July 18 bombing that killed Syria’s defense minister and three other senior officials.
His appearance seemed to be an attempt at normalcy during Eid al-Fitr, a three-day holiday after Ramadan usually characterized by social visits and eating, but it also renewed doubts about the strength and confidence of the government.
Mr. Assad normally prays at the Umayyad Mosque, the biggest and oldest in Damascus, but on Sunday, he chose a much smaller, safer location: the Rihab al-Hamad Mosque next to the presidential palace.
He also did not appear with all of the government’s senior officials. Though several ministers were around Mr. Assad, the vice president, Farouk al-Sharaa, was not among them, fueling speculation that Mr. Sharaa had been thinking about defecting.
Some rebel fighters have said Mr. Sharaa has already fled to Jordan, but the vice president’s office issued a statement Saturday saying he “did not think, at any moment, of leaving the country.” He has not been on Syrian television for at least a week.
Other absent officials included Abullah al-Ahmar, assistant secretary-general of the Baath Party, which suggested to some Syrians that either he had fallen out of favor, or that President Assad had decided to keep his senior officials separated to protect against a large-scale attack.
This year’s Eid al-Fitr has been severely constricted by the 17-month war that shows no sign of ending. Normally the three-day holiday begins with shopping for clothes and sweets to bring to family and friends. The streets of Damascus are typically clogged with people, smiling, laughing, beeping their horns and arguing over parking.
But many refugees are too poor to shop, living in gardens and packed into apartments. More mosques were closed in neighborhoods with empty, shrapnel-pocked buildings, while soldiers in pickup trucks spun through streets that were largely empty.
Across the country, thousands of Syrians staged prayers and held anti-government protests on Sunday. At a graveyard in Qaboun, an opposition stronghold on the northeast fringe of Damascus, a dozen men mourned their sons and brothers who had been killed. Abu Mohammad, 50, a resident of Qaboun, was walking in the graveyard, reading from the Koran and crying.
“How we can find a space for joy and happiness,” he said. “We are burying our dead people every day.”
Further south in Alhajar Aswad, dozens of Syrian families were hiding in a school, trying to avoid the aerial bombing that have been hitting their neighborhood for days. They said that the rebels had been controlling the district until last week, when government forces starting trying to regain the area with tanks, artillery shelling and helicopter fire.
Abu Khalid, 35; his wife and two children moved into a classroom a few days ago. “I don’t know what to say or how to express my feelings,” he said. “I left my house and I don’t know what happened to it. I don’t care about the Eid — every day is the same. We are alive but expect to be killed in any moment.”
He said he was particularly angry about the use of helicopters and airstrikes. “No one can possibly believe this is done to kill ‘armed fighters’,” he said.
In Yarmouk, Syria’s largest Palestinian neighborhood, which abuts Tadamon, where fighting has been particularly intense in recent weeks, residents also described a holiday filled with fear, and devoid of the typical pleasures.
“Every Eid, I usually buy fruits, sweets, chocolates, and I make Palestinian biscuits,” said Abu Amare,45. “But this Eid, I just bought a half kilo of coffee. That’s all I have to present.”
Lack and loss, he and others said, had come to replace abundance and happiness: “It is shameful,” Abu Amare said, “to celebrate while our neighbors are dying.”
It was only the second time that President Assad has been shown on television since a July 18 bombing that killed Syria’s defense minister and three other senior officials.
His appearance seemed to be an attempt at normalcy during Eid al-Fitr, a three-day holiday after Ramadan usually characterized by social visits and eating, but it also renewed doubts about the strength and confidence of the government.
Mr. Assad normally prays at the Umayyad Mosque, the biggest and oldest in Damascus, but on Sunday, he chose a much smaller, safer location: the Rihab al-Hamad Mosque next to the presidential palace.
He also did not appear with all of the government’s senior officials. Though several ministers were around Mr. Assad, the vice president, Farouk al-Sharaa, was not among them, fueling speculation that Mr. Sharaa had been thinking about defecting.
Some rebel fighters have said Mr. Sharaa has already fled to Jordan, but the vice president’s office issued a statement Saturday saying he “did not think, at any moment, of leaving the country.” He has not been on Syrian television for at least a week.
Other absent officials included Abullah al-Ahmar, assistant secretary-general of the Baath Party, which suggested to some Syrians that either he had fallen out of favor, or that President Assad had decided to keep his senior officials separated to protect against a large-scale attack.
This year’s Eid al-Fitr has been severely constricted by the 17-month war that shows no sign of ending. Normally the three-day holiday begins with shopping for clothes and sweets to bring to family and friends. The streets of Damascus are typically clogged with people, smiling, laughing, beeping their horns and arguing over parking.
But many refugees are too poor to shop, living in gardens and packed into apartments. More mosques were closed in neighborhoods with empty, shrapnel-pocked buildings, while soldiers in pickup trucks spun through streets that were largely empty.
Across the country, thousands of Syrians staged prayers and held anti-government protests on Sunday. At a graveyard in Qaboun, an opposition stronghold on the northeast fringe of Damascus, a dozen men mourned their sons and brothers who had been killed. Abu Mohammad, 50, a resident of Qaboun, was walking in the graveyard, reading from the Koran and crying.
“How we can find a space for joy and happiness,” he said. “We are burying our dead people every day.”
Further south in Alhajar Aswad, dozens of Syrian families were hiding in a school, trying to avoid the aerial bombing that have been hitting their neighborhood for days. They said that the rebels had been controlling the district until last week, when government forces starting trying to regain the area with tanks, artillery shelling and helicopter fire.
Abu Khalid, 35; his wife and two children moved into a classroom a few days ago. “I don’t know what to say or how to express my feelings,” he said. “I left my house and I don’t know what happened to it. I don’t care about the Eid — every day is the same. We are alive but expect to be killed in any moment.”
He said he was particularly angry about the use of helicopters and airstrikes. “No one can possibly believe this is done to kill ‘armed fighters’,” he said.
In Yarmouk, Syria’s largest Palestinian neighborhood, which abuts Tadamon, where fighting has been particularly intense in recent weeks, residents also described a holiday filled with fear, and devoid of the typical pleasures.
“Every Eid, I usually buy fruits, sweets, chocolates, and I make Palestinian biscuits,” said Abu Amare,45. “But this Eid, I just bought a half kilo of coffee. That’s all I have to present.”
Lack and loss, he and others said, had come to replace abundance and happiness: “It is shameful,” Abu Amare said, “to celebrate while our neighbors are dying.”