Damascus announced on Sunday the seizure of a shipment of captagon pills bound to Iraq.
State television said the shipment had arrived in Syria from a neighboring country that it did not name. It did not disclose the amount of narcotics that were busted.
The announcement came a day after Iraqi Interior Minister Abdul Amir Al-Shammari said Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani was planning for Iraq to become the “security hub” in combating drugs, reported the state news agency (INA).
He also announced the formation of a joint liaison cell between Jordan, Lebanon and Syria to combat drug smuggling.
Al-Shammari praised the major cooperation with neighboring countries in cracking down on drug smuggling. The cooperation is part of a comprehensive strategy that was prepared in early 2023 and should span three years and aim to achieve 15 goals with 24 partners.
Thorny file
Informed sources in Damascus told Asharq Al-Awsat that the drug file was “growing more complicated” because of the involvement of Iran-aligned militias and several powerful officials.
In 2021, the American New Lines Institute estimated that $5.7 billion was being generated annually by the drug trade.
Damascus appears helpless in answering pressure from Jordan and other Arab countries in cracking down on the illicit business.
Syria is languishing under Iranian debts and a crumbling economy, so it needed to look for alternative sources of income, such as the drug trade, to remain afloat. This has put it in hot water with various Arab countries that have complained about the rise in drug use in the region.
Besides Syria, Lebanon and Iraq have witnessed a spike in drug production that thrived on instability in these countries.
The growing phenomenon has become a threat to Arab peace and national security, most notably in Jordan and the Gulf region.
British and American estimates have said that Syria is the source of 80 percent of the captagon in the world. In 2023, Washington slapped sanctions on several Syrian and Lebanese figures involved in the trade.
Observers have said that the threat of drugs was one of the main reasons why Jordan led efforts to reinstate Syria’s membership in the Arab League, which was seen as precursor to Arab countries normalizing relations with it.
Other issues on the table were the Syrian refugee file and reaching a political solution to the Syrian conflict in line with United Nations resolutions.
However, drug smuggling did not diminish with Syria’s return to the Arab League. Jordan has since dispatched the army to the border with Syria where it often clashes with smugglers.
The Jordanian air force has even carried out strikes against smugglers inside Syria. One attack left ten civilians dead in the Sweida region.
Tensions in relations have since spiked between Amman and Damascus. This did not prevent armed opposition groups in predominantly Druze Sweida to declare they were ready to cooperate with Jordan in cracking down on the smugglers to avert more strikes and civilian casualties.
Jordan has since cast doubt on Damascus’ ability in curbing the illicit activity.
