Syria president to newly captured town for Eid prayers
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Syrian President Bashar Assad has traveled to a town recently captured from Islamic State group militants to attend Eid al-Adha prayers.
Syria's state media says President Bashar Assad prayed Friday in Bilal mosque in Qarat, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) from Damascus. Qarat fell during a joint offensive between Syria's army and Lebanon's Hezbollah. The Lebanese army carried out a separate but simultaneous campaign on the other side of the border, securing the shared frontier for the first time in years.
The offensive was followed by a controversial a Hezbollah-negotiated deal to transport the remaining militants to an IS-held town in eastern Syria near the Iraqi border in exchange for revealing the fate of missing Lebanese fighters.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The deal angered Iraq and the U.S., which launched airstrikes, disrupting the deal.