The House Foreign Affairs Committee has approved a draft resolution that lays out a US strategy to disrupt and dismantle narcotics production and trafficking and affiliated networks linked to the Assad regime in Syria.
The draft, submitted by bipartisan lawmakers, says the Captagon trade linked to the Assad regime is a “transnational security threat" and calls on the administration to develop and implement a strategy "to deny, degrade, and dismantle Assad-linked narcotics production and trafficking networks."
The draft calls on the White House to submit the strategy to Congress for review within a period not exceeding 180 days from its approval, if it includes support to regional allies who receive large quantities of Captagon during their smuggling operations.
The strategy includes a public campaign to highlight the Assad regime's relationship with illicit drug trafficking and a list of countries that receive large shipments of Captagon, in addition to evaluating the capabilities of these countries to stop smuggling operations.
Congress is increasing pressure on the Biden administration to address the narcotics issue.
The two top Republicans in the Congressional Foreign Relations Committees called on the White House to submit a detailed report highlighting the Syrian president's role in trafficking, noting the repercussions of the issue on regional stability.
Lead Republican Mike McCaul and Senator Jim Risch sent a letter to Secretary Antony Blinken warning that Jordan is increasingly threatened by the flow of Captagon across its border and has had several dangerous skirmishes with drug traffickers on its border with Syria.
The letter warned that Saudi Arabia is also “under assault from flows of Syrian Captagon” and “has been forced to increase security resources for interdiction efforts.”
A group of Democratic and Republican lawmakers had called the US administration last week to include Syria as “major illicit drug producing countries” or “major drug-transit countries.”
In a letter they wrote to Blinken, the legislators urged the ministry to assess the activities carried out by the Syrian regime in the field of drug manufacturing and trafficking to determine its category.
“In addition to its gross human rights violations and regularly committing war crimes against his own people, the Assad regime in Syria has now become a narco-state. The production and trade of the drug, Captagon, is not only a critical financial lifeline to Assad but it cripples local populations, serves to undermine families and local communities, and finances Iran-backed groups in the region.”
The lawmakers called on the US government to do all it could to disrupt the industrial level of drug production in Syria.
“This includes getting my bill for an interagency strategy signed into law and the Department of State determining that Syria is a major drug manufacturing and transit country. If we do not act, then we risk permitting the narco-state of Assad to become a permanent fixture in the region,” they concluded.
