The Middle East drug fueling war, crime and all-night parties
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Another urgent conflict in the Middle East is playing out on the border between Syria and Jordan: a war against captagon, an amphetamine-like drug that’s taken off across the region. The drug cuts across social class and borders.
It’s used by taxi drivers handling late-night shifts, militia fighters looking to induce courage, students studying for exams, and high-powered executives wanting to work, or party, long hours. It’s all added up to a multibillion-dollar drug trade that is fueling more conflict in the region. Money from drug smuggling has lined the pockets of Iran-backed militias, including Hezbollah, which has spent vast amounts of its proceeds on weapons to fight Israel.
The drug props up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose regime has become one of the world’s biggest drug syndicates, helping it offset years of punishing Western economic sanctions. Syria has denied any involvement in the drug trade. U.S.
officials are increasingly worried that the captagon trade is undermining decades of relative stability in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, crucial American allies. Jordan has deployed about a third of its army to help curb the flow of drugs across its border with Syria, as well as weapons trafficked by the same networks, a senior Jordanian security official said. Much of the production takes place in Syria, officials and researchers say, with some in Lebanon.
Smugglers might move the drugs from Syria through the official crossing to Jordan by stashing them in trucks, or by hiring women and children to stuff the pills in their tops or their shoes. In the desert, smugglers use catapults to throw the drug over border walls or drones. Or they simply go by foot, particularly in
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