By AP: BEIRUT –  Hamada Bayloun is not particularly religious, but across his entire upper back spreads a large tattoo of the most revered saint in Shiite Islam, Imam Ali.

He is one of a growing number of Shiite Muslims in Lebanon who have inked themselves with Shiite religious and political symbols as a show of pride in their community since neighboring Syria's civil war broke out in 2011, fanning hatreds between Shiites, Sunnis and other faiths across the region. The 30-year-old Bayloun got his tattoo a few months after the war began, partly as a response to attempts to bomb Shiite shrines in Syria and Iraq.

"We can't respond with car bombs, but (through tattoos) we can show our strength and love for the prophet and his family," he said, referring to Islam's Prophet Muhammad, who was Ali's cousin and father-in-law. The Syrian conflict, which began with government forces crushing protests against President Bashar Assad, became a fight between predominantly Sunni rebels against Assad's minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiism. The Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah has sent thousands of its fighters to Syria to support Assad, alongside Iranian, Iraqi and other Shiite militias.

gulfnews.com

Beirut: The founder of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), the 82-year-old former Lebanese Commander of the Lebanese Army General Michel Aoun, confronted a defining challenge as the party he created in 2005 expelled three leading members over policy differences.

Media reports confirmed that a senior FPM official sitting on the party’s disciplinary committee called Ziad Abs, Naim Aoun and Antoine Nasrallah to inform them of their expulsions, after it determined that all three tarnished the group’s reputation.

In remarks made to New [Al Jadeed] Television, Abs, a key FPM official in Beirut’s Ashrafieh area corroborated that he had been expelled from the FPM along with Naim Aoun and Antoine Nasrallah. Previously, Abs ran into an open confrontation with the FPM’s current president, Minister of Foreign Affairs Jibran Bassil (who happens to also be General Michel Aoun’s son-in-law), as he expressed a wish to run for party office.

By Natasha Bertrand

Al Qaeda's former affiliate in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, formally severed ties with the global terror organization Thursday in an attempt to "unify" as a distinct Islamist brigade with its own revolutionary goals and vision.

In its mission to rebrand itself, al-Nusra — now identifying as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham — has clearly indicated that it is not committed to Al Qaeda's brand of global jihad, but to the singular goal of a fomenting an Islamic revolution inside Syria.  The break was made easier by the fact that, since its emergence in 2012, Nusra has woven itself into the fabric of Syria's communities and established military alliances of convenience with many mainstream rebel groups in the name of toppling Syrian president Bashar Assad. But it also confirms that Nusra has no intention of distancing itself from the revolution's non-jihadist rebel groups, many of whom are backed by the US and its allies.

By The Independent -- Men in Iran are wearing hijabs in a display of solidarity with women across the country who are forced to cover their heads in public.  Wearing a headscarf is strictly enforced by so-called 'morality police' in Iran and has been since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Women who do not wear a hijab or are deemed to be wearing 'bad hijab' by having some of their hair showing face punishments ranging from fines to imprisonment.  

State-funded adverts appearing on billboards in Iran present those who do not cover their hair as spoiled and dishonourable. Women are also told that by not complying, they are putting themselves at risk of unwanted sexual advances from men.  But women are leading protests against enforced hijab across the country and some have resorted to shaving their hair in order to appear in public without wearing a veil.