Syria: The War-Torn Drug Capital Of The Middle East
Written by Nathan Matsko
Photo by Wengang Zhai on Unsplash
Bellefonte-After more than a decade of political isolation, Syria has officially been welcomed back into the Arab League, per Al-Jazeera.
Syria’s President, Bashar Al-Assad, was greeted with a hug by Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman, who has pushed for the reintegration of Syria back into the Arab League. Syria’s membership was suspended following the crackdown on anti-government protesters in 2011, which eventually erupted into a full-blown civil war that has still not been fully resolved. The conflict has killed at least half a million people, with tens of millions more displaced both internally and externally. Much of the country’s northernmost areas are still occupied by a number of factions opposed to Al-Assad’s government.
Syria’s reconciliation with the region has conditions, however. One of the most pressing issues to the country’s direct neighbors-namely Jordan and Iraq- is the trafficking of drugs across their borders. As part of the conditions of its reintegration, Syria vowed to crack down on the operations taking place within its borders.
Despite these seemingly productive talks, some are doubtful that the Syrian regime will make good on its promises.
VICES, NEW AND OLD
Captagon is the brand name of a stimulant drug similar to amphetamines first developed in the 1960s to treat children with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder. Though captagon is the name frequently used in the Middle East, the variant coming out of Syria in massive quantities has no relation to the brand, other than containing similar ingredients. It is produced illicitly, and often using many fillers. Despite efforts by Jordanian and Iraqi officials to prevent the movement of the drug across their borders, the drug has taken the Arab Peninsula by storm and subsequently earns its producers billions of dollars by some estimates.
There have been several instances of seizures of the drug in transit. In 2018, a Syrian ship bound for North Africa was raided by Greek authorities, who found millions of captagon capsules worth over $100 million. Last month, over 10 million capsules to be smuggled to Saudi Arabia via Africa were seized in Lebanon.
Arab nations have made attempts at curbing the smuggling of the drug into their countries, though the scale of the operations has made this increasingly difficult. In late 2021, Saudi Arabia restricted the imports of Lebanese agricultural products after several million captagon capsules were discovered hidden inside pomegranates.
THE SOURCE
Despite promises to curb the trafficking of captagon from Syria by Al-Assad, some experts and officials believe that the Syrian government is not only complicit in the production and sales of the drug but relies heavily on the profits it generates. Several family members of Al-Assad have faced sanctions from both the United States and the European Union over their alleged involvement in the production and trafficking of the drug. There have also been reports that many of the facilities in southern Syria that produce captagon are protected by an armor division of the Syrian military led by Bashar’s younger brother, Maher Al-Assad.
Syria is not the only alleged beneficiary of the trade, however. Western governments have accused Hezbollah of aiding the operation by smuggling the drugs through territories under its control in Lebanon and, subsequently, to ports where it can be shipped abroad. Just one day after Syria rejoined the Arab League, an alleged Jordanian airstrike in Southern Syria killed Merhi al-Ramthan, a suspected drug dealer with ties to pro-government militias as well as Hezbollah. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, has denied this claim, citing the group’s apparent cooperation with the Lebanese government in conducting raids against Lebanese captagon dealers.