Syria Regime Forces Kick off Campaign against ISIS after Deadly Ambush

Illustrative: Syrian engineering troops check for mines in the M5 highway in Aleppo, Syria, February 15, 2020. (SANA via AP)
Illustrative: Syrian engineering troops check for mines in the M5 highway in Aleppo, Syria, February 15, 2020. (SANA via AP)
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Syria Regime Forces Kick off Campaign against ISIS after Deadly Ambush

Illustrative: Syrian engineering troops check for mines in the M5 highway in Aleppo, Syria, February 15, 2020. (SANA via AP)
Illustrative: Syrian engineering troops check for mines in the M5 highway in Aleppo, Syria, February 15, 2020. (SANA via AP)

Syrian regime forces, with Russian support, kicked off a wide operation in the vast Badia (desert) in retaliation to the rising number of attacks launched by ISIS remnants in the area.

The latest attack took place in Deir Ezzor on Wednesday when ISIS ambushed a bus carrying soldiers and pro-government militias who had finished their leave and were on their way back to their base in the desolate, sparsely populated area.

Some 40 soldiers, mostly from the army’s Fourth Brigade, were killed and six others were badly wounded.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the regime, backed by the National Defense Forces and Palestinian Jerusalem Brigade militias, launched its campaign on Friday with Russian air cover.

Russian aircraft carried out dozens of strikes against ISIS positions in the region that stretches from Hama, Aleppo and al-Raqqa.

The Observatory revealed that ISIS had killed 819 regime members and allied militants throughout 2020, in ambushes, attacks and fighting. The terror group lost 507 members in these clashes and in Russian and regime air raids.



Yemen Busts Attempt to Smuggle over 1.5 Million Narcotic Pills into Saudi Arabia

Officials oversee the destruction of narcotics seized during drug busts on the Yemeni-Saudi border. (Saba)
Officials oversee the destruction of narcotics seized during drug busts on the Yemeni-Saudi border. (Saba)
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Yemen Busts Attempt to Smuggle over 1.5 Million Narcotic Pills into Saudi Arabia

Officials oversee the destruction of narcotics seized during drug busts on the Yemeni-Saudi border. (Saba)
Officials oversee the destruction of narcotics seized during drug busts on the Yemeni-Saudi border. (Saba)

Yemen’s border authorities announced on Thursday that they busted an attempt to smuggle over 1.5 million narcotic pills from the Houthi-held capital Sanaa to Saudi Arabia.

Officials suspect that such large amounts of narcotics is an indication that the Captagon industry and the manufacturing of other drugs could have moved from Syria to Yemeni regions held by the Iran-backed Houthi militias.

The Captagon industry had thrived for years under the now ousted regime of President Bashar al-Assad. He was overthrown by opposition factions in December. Iranian militias had used the Captagon trade to finance their operations in Syria.

Head of security at the Wadiah border crossing Omair al-Azab said the drugs were concealed inside a cooling truck.

Security forces at the crossing were suspicious of the truck and they searched it thoroughly, leading to the bust, he added.

During preliminary investigations, the truck driver confessed that the pills belonged to a smuggler in Sanaa, continued Azab.

He was tasked with delivering the illicit cargo to a person, whose identity he did not know, in the Saudi city of Sharurah.

He revealed that authorities have foiled several drug smuggling attempts in recent months. They seized a ton of cannabis, 15,000 Captagon pills, four kilograms of methamphetamine, and 27,300 other pills.

In February, over three tons of different drugs, seized during various busts, were destroyed in the presence of representatives of concerned Yemeni and Saudi authorities, he added.

Drugs smuggling gangs resort to innovative ways to conceal their illicit cargo, such as hiding them in watermelons, spare tires and the front seats of vehicles, Azab said.

Security forces at the border will remain on alert for any suspicious activity and to defend the nation, he vowed.

Attache at the Yemen Embassy in Riyadh Saleh al-Baidhani warned that such smuggling attempts may be a sign that Captagon was now being manufactured by the Houthis in Yemen.

This demands intensified border security and greater security cooperation between the legitimate Yemeni government and Saudi authorities, he told Asharq Al-Awsat.

He confirmed that trucks smuggling drugs were coming from areas held by the Houthis.

Baidhani slammed the drug trade that is “destroying Arab youth”.