Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

CBS News – With the death toll from the 40-month war in excess of 170,000 and the fighting still raging across the country, Syria’s embattled President Bashar Assad was sworn in Wednesday for a third seven-year term in power.

Assad was swept back into office in a June 3 election derided as a “farce” by the opposition and dismissed by much of the international community as illegitimate. He took the oath in a well-organized ceremony at the Presidential palace that seemed to defy international calls for his ouster ever since the outbreak of a revolt in March 2011.

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