Syria's Assad visits troops in battle-scarred Ghouta

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad on Sunday paid a first visit in years to battered East Ghouta to congratulate his troops for a gruelling assault to oust rebels from near Damascus.Syrian state television broadcast photos of the president dressed in a shirt and jacket surrounded by soldiers, some perched on a tank behind him, in an unspecified part of Eastern Ghouta.Rebels have held out in Eastern Ghouta since 2012, but a regime assault in the last month has retaken more than 80 percent of the f