On May 12, the Al-Akhbar daily newspaper carried the following report: “The Saudi authorities implemented their earlier threats by demolishing the historical neighborhood of Al-Masoura in the town of Awamiyah in Al-Qatif governorate, which is administratively part of the Eastern Province.
Four years after Lebanon’s Hezbollah first appeared in Syria, and following the military victory in Aleppo last December, there is great change in Syria’s Shi’a Twelver community. The community makes up no more than 1-2 percent of the total Syrian population, a few hundred thousand people at most, but has been largely militarized since 2012.
