Beheadings? A-OK. Smoking? Not so much.
A lot of things are forbidden by the Islamic State in Syria, but smoking might be the hardest vice for people to quit in a country where it's so widespread — the World Health Organization estimates that about half of all Syrian men and 1 in 10 women are smokers. Very conservative variations of Sharia law consider smoking a dragged out form of suicide, the Los Angeles Times reports, and ISIS has closed down water-pipe cafes and tobacco stores, and punished smokers with at least 40 lashes and sometimes even death.
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