Regardless of anti-drug claims by Damascus, Captagon smuggling continues untreated, driven by a complicated network including ex-military, Hezbollah, and local stars
[Damascus]– While Damascus continues to advertise its anti-drug efforts, surrounding nations stay on high alert, regularly obstructing drug deliveries at their borders with Syria. This highlights an extreme truth: the drug trade is no longer unique to the Assad program. Even after the Syrian president’s fall and the subsiding impact of Hezbollah, the risk continues.
Previously today, Syria’s Drug Enforcement Administration revealed the discovery of a Captagon production center in Homs, near the Lebanese border. Authorities seized devices and basic materials. Accompanying this, the Lebanese army robbed a comparable laboratory in the Hermel area, likewise near the Syrian border.
These seizures seem simple drops in the ocean. Captagon production continues unabated, and deliveries frequently make their method towards Jordanian and Gulf borders. The genuine designers of these networks– those who handle and safeguard them– stay unblemished.
Because the break out of the Syrian war, the nation has actually come down into a state of arranged mayhem. The Assad program discovered in narcotics an alternative economy to make up for the collapse of state organizations and earnings streams.
Captagon, a little stimulant tablet, has actually ended up being a multi-billion-dollar export product, smuggled through detailed paths into the Gulf and Europe.
Intelligence reports from the United States and Gulf nations suggest that Syria’s defunct fourth Department, previously led by Maher al-Assad, offered military security for the trafficking networks. On the other hand, Hezbollah was important in protecting border paths to the Mediterranean through Hermel and Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley.
Within this plan, Captagon went beyond simple illegal trade. It ended up being an instrument of governance, financing, and local take advantage of– a tool of political adjustment and battleground funding.
While Syria stays mainly passive, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan has actually taken the lead in facing the crisis. Over the previous 2 years, Amman has actually reinforced military and intelligence operations along its northern frontier. Smuggling efforts from Syrian area now happen on a practically day-to-day basis and are progressively accompanied by armed attacks.
In the most recent such occasion, Jordanian Army foiled a significant smuggling effort last Sunday. According to a main military declaration, border monitoring spotted a group of traffickers trying to cross unlawfully from Syria. A quick response force was released, engaging per basic guidelines of engagement. The traffickers left back into Syrian area, leaving big amounts of Captagon, which were taken.
A senior Jordanian military source informed The Media Line: “Smugglers now run with sophisticated tactical techniques– utilizing drones, encrypted interactions, and jamming gadgets. This recommends the participation of stars with top-level functional and intelligence abilities.”
Regardless of growing speculation about Assad’s fall and Hezbollah’s reducing function, security specialists warn that the Captagon risk is most likely to sustain. Over the last years, a complicated facilities has actually emerged– monetary, logistical, and security-oriented– that might make it through the political failure of its founding figures.
Captagon is no longer a job run by people– it is an integrated system including military officers, smugglers, militia leaders, and global cash laundering networks. The fall of Assad or Nasrallah will not instantly dismantle it. On the contrary, it might end up being a lot more harmful in the lack of central authority.
Retired Brigadier General Mustafa al-Sheikh informed The Media Line: “Captagon is no longer a job run by people– it is an integrated system including military officers, smugglers, militia leaders, and global cash laundering networks. The fall of Assad or Nasrallah will not instantly dismantle it. On the contrary, it might end up being a lot more harmful in the lack of central authority.”
The genuine risk is that parts of Syria– specifically the south and west– might end up being ungoverned zones where regional warlords manage drug operations in the lack of a structured political shift.
He included: “The genuine risk is that parts of Syria– specifically the south and west– might end up being ungoverned zones where regional warlords manage drug operations in the lack of a structured political shift.”
Regardless of various reports revealing the Captagon trade yields billions each year, the worldwide neighborhood has yet to establish a meaningful method to resolve it. Sanctions from the United States and Europe have actually targeted people and entities, however with little systemic impact.
Significant powers see ‘stability’ in Syria– even under Assad– as more effective to mayhem. With Washington and Brussels taken in by crises in Ukraine and Gaza, there’s little bandwidth for Syria’s narcotics risk.
Security expert Abdul Latif Mustafa informed The Media Line: “Significant powers see ‘stability’ in Syria– even under Assad– as more effective to mayhem. With Washington and Brussels taken in by crises in Ukraine and Gaza, there’s little bandwidth for Syria’s narcotics risk.
He highlighted the seriousness of developing a regional-international alliance, comparable to counter-terrorism unions, to fight the drug trade. “Captagon now fuels extremism and threatens the internal stability of a number of nations,” he stated.
According to Abdul Latif Mustafa, the initial step in dismantling this arranged criminal empire is cutting off its financing sources. That would need:
- Targeting drug production centers and facilities in Syria and Lebanon.
- Punishing cash laundering networks connected to Captagon earnings.
- A trilateral security coordination system in between Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq to be developed with worldwide assistance.
- Enhancing aerial and ground monitoring systems along Syrian borders.
- Enforcing rigid sanctions on both state and non-state stars associated with narcotics, no matter authorities or militia status.
The Captagon crisis is not simply a matter of narcotics– it is a hybrid risk, linking the mob, financial desperation, and local power battles. As long as deliveries continue to stream and political will stays doing not have in Damascus and its allies, Captagon will stay both a “tool of governance” and a “weapon of browbeating” in the hands of a resistant local axis.
The reaction can not be regional alone. It needs to be local and worldwide, geared up with tools proportional to the scale of the risk. Security is no longer almost borders– it has to do with political will. Therefore far, that will stay missing.