Bashar Al-Assad Sworn in for Third Term as Syria’s President

Bashar al-Assad has been sworn in for a new seven-year term as president of Syria after an election victory that underlined his grip on power more than three years into the country's civil war that has killed more than 100,000 people.

Photo: Reuters

The presidential election, dismissed as a sham by Assad’s opponents, was held in June in areas of central and northern Syria that remain under state control. Large areas of Syria have fallen to an insurgency dominated by Islamists, including a powerful al Qaeda offshoot known as the Islamic State that has also seized swathes of Iraq.




The inauguration was at the Presidential Palace on Wednesday on Mount Mezzeh in the capital, Damascus. It is Assad’s third term in the presidency.