CAPTAGON

Syria’s rebel victors expose ousted government’s drug trade

By AFP
December 12, 2024

Rebel fighters said they found a drug factory linked to Maher al-Assad, widely accused of being the power behind the lucrative captagon trade 

- Copyright AFP Aris MESSINIS
Dave CLARK

The dramatic collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime has thrown light into the dark corners of his rule, including the industrial-scale export of the banned drug captagon.

Victorious Islamist-led fighters have seized military bases and distribution hubs for the amphetamine-type stimulant, which has flooded the black market across the Middle East.

Led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, the rebels say they found a vast haul of drugs and vowed to destroy them.

On Wednesday, HTS fighters allowed Afp journalists into a warehouse at a quarry on the outskirts of Damascus, where captagon pills were concealed inside electrical components for export.

“After we entered and did a sweep, and we found that this is a factory for Maher al-Assad and his partner Amer Khiti,” said black-masked fighter Abu Malek al-Shami.



– Household appliances –



Maher al-Assad was a military commander and the deposed strongman’s brother, now presumed on the run. He is widely accused of being the power behind the lucrative captagon trade.

Syrian politician Khiti was placed under sanction in 2023 by the British government, which said he “controls multiple businesses in Syria which facilitate the production and smuggling of drugs”.

In a cavernous garage beneath the warehouse and loading bays, thousands of dusty beige captagon pills were packed into the copper coils of brand new household voltage stabilisers.

“We found a large number of devices that were stuffed with packages of captagon pills meant to be smuggled out of the country. It’s a huge quantity. It’s impossible to tell,” Shami said.

Above, in the warehouse, crates of cardboard boxes stood ready to allow the traffickers to disguise their cargo as pallet-loads of standard goods, alongside sacks and sacks of caustic soda.

Caustic soda, or sodium hydroxide, is a key ingredient in the production of methamphetamine, another stimulant.

Assad fell at the weekend to a lightning HTS offensive, but the revenue from selling captagon propped up Assad’s government throughout Syria’s 13 years of civil war.

Captagon turned Syria into the world’s largest narco state. It became by far Syria’s biggest export, dwarfing all its legal exports put together, according to estimates drawn from official data by AFP during a 2022 investigation.

Experts — like the author of a July report from the Carnegie Middle East Center — also believe that Assad used the threat of drug-fuelled unrest to put pressure on Arab governments.

Captagon fuelled an epidemic of drug abuse in wealthy Gulf states, even as Assad sought ways to end his diplomatic isolation among his peers, wrote Carnegie scholar Hesham Alghannam.



– ‘Huge amount, brother’ –



Assad, he wrote, “leveraged captagon trafficking as a means of exerting pressure on the Gulf states, notably Saudi Arabia, to reintegrate Syria into the Arab world”, which it did in 2023 when it rejoined the Arab League bloc.

The caustic soda at the warehouse, in the Damascus suburbs, was supplied from Saudi Arabia, according to labelling on the sacks.

The warehouse haul was massive, but smaller and still impressive stashes of captagon have also turned up in military facilities associated with units under Maher Assad’s command.

Journalists from AFP this week found a bonfire of captagon pills on the grounds of the Mazzeh air base, now in the hands of HTS fighters who descended on the capital Damascus from the north.

Behind the smouldering heap, in a ransacked air force building, more captagon lay alongside other illicit exports, including off-brand Viagra impotence remedies and poorly-forged $100 bills.

“As we entered the area we found a huge quantity of captagon. So we destroyed it and burned it. It’s a huge amount, brother,” said an HTS fighter using the nom de guerre “Khattab”.

“We destroyed and burned it because it’s harmful to people. It harms nature and people and humans.”

Khattab also stressed that HTS, which has formed a transitional government to replace the collapsed administration, does not want to harm its neighbours by exporting the drug — a trade worth billions of dollars.

Inside Assad’s Captagon drug-smuggling empire and how it funded brutal Syrian regime

Story by Alex Croft
• 12/13/2024 • THE INDEPENDENT

As the dust settles on the fragments of Bashar al-Assad’s collapsed Syrian dictatorship, the truth about a mass drug empire believed to have brought huge profits to the former regime is being uncovered among the ashes.

The Assad family was long accused by Washington and other international actors of profiteering from the production and sale of captagon, an addictive amphetamine-like stimulant which swept across the Middle East and became known as “poor-man’s cocaine”.

The regime consistently denied links to the global captagon trade, which experts say is worth billions of dollars a year. A stimulant first produced in 1960s Germany to help treat attention deficit disorders and narcolepsy has swept the Middle East across the past decade.

It was discontinued but an illicit version of the drug known as "poor man's cocaine" continued to be produced in eastern Europe and later in the Arab world, becoming prominent in the conflict that erupted in Syria following anti-government protests in 2011.

It staves off sleep and hunger. It has been banned in many countries including the U.S. and can have harmful side effects. Its prevalence has led to growing drug abuse in Gulf Arab states.




Syrian members of the rebel group inspecting electrical components that were used to hide amphetamine pills (AP)

Now that the Assad family has been ousted following a lightning insurgency led by former al-Qaeda affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the scale of the trade in captagon is becoming clear.

In the city of Douma, 10 kilometres northeast of Syria’s capital of Damascus, warehouses storing thousands of captagon pills have been unearthed by the rebels scouring areas once controlled by the Assad regime and its allies. The warehouse, according to experts, may be one of the biggest captagon labs ever seen.

Pills were found hidden in furniture, fruit, decorative pebbles and voltage stabilisers. Many had a double crescent logo stamped on them, marking them as captagon pills.




Amphetamine pills, known as Captagon, hidden inside an electrical component at a warehouse where the drug was manufactured (AP)

Inside the warehouse, a pill-press was found along with dozens of barrels holding the various chemicals required to produce captagon. The chemicals came from various countries including the UK, China and India.

The leadership of Syria made an annual profit from captagon of around $2.4 billion, according to Caroline Rose, the director of the New-York-based New Lines Institute Captagon Trade Project. An investigation by AFP news agency found that captagon had become Syria’s largest export, dwarfing its legal businesses.

Ms Rose, whose organisation tracks all publicly recorded captagon seizures and lab raids, said the site appeared to be one of the biggest captagon labs that has been found.

"It’s very possible that it's the biggest one that existed in regime-held Syria," she said.




Captagon helped to prop up Assad’s war effort to the tune of $2.4 billion per year (AP)

Last year, the US Treasury sanctioned a number of Syrians closely associated with the Assad regime for their alleged involvement captagon trade.

“The Syrian regime and its allies have increasingly embraced the production and trafficking of captagon to generate hard currency, estimated by some to be in the billions of dollars,” the Treasury said.

Related video: Syria's rebel victors expose ousted government's drug trade (AFP)

More videos

France24 (Video)Syrians celebrate the demise of Assad's regime as thousands freed from prison
8:15

France24 (Video)Syrian rebels discover large-scale drug factories
2:05

Among those sanctioned were two cousins of Bashar al-Assad and Khalid Qaddour, a close associate of Maher al-Assad, brother of Bashar, who was described as a “key drug producer and facilitator” of captagon production in Syria.

In the days since Assad's fall, rebel fighters say they have found several sites across the country where the drug was produced and prepared for export.

They have sometimes set fire to the pills or poured them down drains, according to videos shared online by accounts affiliated with them.

Ms Rose noted that her organisation tracked all publicly recorded captagon seizures and lab raids.

"Up until the regime fell, there was not a single incident of a laboratory seizure on the database in regime-held territories," she said.

Speaking in front of a crowd of supporters inside the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, rebel leader Abu Mohammad al-Golani told supporters according to AFP: “Syria has become the biggest producer of Captagon on Earth, and today, Syria is going to be purified by the grace of God.”

Reuters contributed to this report

The Independent stands for many things, often uniquely so. It stands independent of political party allegiance, and makes its own mind up on the issues of the day. The Independent has always been committed to challenge and debate. It launched in 1986 to create a new voice and in that time has run campaigns for issues ranging from the legalisation of marijuana to the Final Say Brexit petition.

What is the drug captagon and how is it linked to Syria’s fallen Assad regime?

THE CONVERSATION

Published: December 13, 2024 

After the fall of the al-Assad regime in Syria, large stockpiles of the illicit drug captagon have reportedly been uncovered.

The stockpiles, found by Syrian rebels, are believed to be linked to al-Assad military headquarters, implicating the fallen regime in the drug’s manufacture and distribution.

But as we’ll see, captagon was once a pharmaceutical drug, similar to some of the legally available stimulants we still use today for conditions including attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Captagon was once a pharmaceutical

Captagon is the original brand name of an old synthetic pharmaceutical stimulant originally made in Germany in the 1960s. It was an alternative to amphetamine and methamphetamine, which were both used as medicines at the time.

The drug has the active ingredient fenethylline and was initially marketed for conditions including ADHD and the sleeping disorder narcolepsy. It had a similar use to some of the legally available stimulants we still use today, such as dexamphetamine.

Captagon has similar effects to amphetamines. It increases dopamine in the brain, leading to feelings of wellbeing, pleasure and euphoria. It also improves focus, concentration and stamina. But it has a lot of unwanted side effects, such as low-level psychosis.

The drug was originally sold mostly in the Middle East and parts of Europe. It was available over the counter (without a prescription) in Europe for a short time before it became prescription-only.

It was approved only briefly in the United States before becoming a controlled substance in the 1980s, but was still legal for the treatment of narcolepsy in many European countries until relatively recently.

According to the International Narcotics Control Board pharmaceutical manufacture of Captagon had stopped by 2009.

The illicit trade took over

The illegally manufactured version is usually referred to as captagon (with a small c). It is sometimes called “chemical courage” because it is thought to be used by soldiers in war-torn areas of the Middle East to help give them focus and energy.

For instance, it’s been reportedly found on the bodies of Hamas soldiers during the conflict with Israel.

Its manufacture is relatively straightforward and inexpensive, making it an obvious target for the black-market drug trade.

Black-market captagon is now nearly exclusively manufactured in Syria and surrounding countries such as Lebanon. It’s mostly used in the Middle East, including recreationally in some Gulf states.

It is one of the most commonly used illicit drugs in Syria.

A recent report suggests captagon generated more than US$7.3 billion in Syria and Lebanon between 2020 and 2022 (about $2.4 billion a year).

What we know about illicit drugs generally is that any seizures or crackdowns on manufacturing or sale have a very limited impact on the drug market because another manufacturer or distributor pops up to meet demand.

So in all likelihood, given the size of the captagon market in the Middle East, these latest drug discoveries and seizures are likely to reduce manufacture only for a short time.

Author

Nicole Lee
Adjunct Professor at the National Drug Research Institute (Melbourne based), Curtin University
Disclosure statement
Nicole Lee works as a paid consultant to the alcohol and other drug sector. She has previously been awarded grants by state and federal governments, NHMRC and other public funding bodies for alcohol and other drug research. She is a Board member of The Loop Australia.

What is Captagon, the addictive drug mass-produced in al-Assad's ...

May 9, 2023 ... An addictive, amphetamine-type stimulant, Captagon has been primarily produced in Syria in recent years and smuggled to the Gulf states. That ...

BACKGROUNDERS

How Assad turned Syria into a narco-state 

By By Josiane Hajj Moussa for bne Beirut bureau December 14, 2024

A video circulating on social media this week shows a warehouse in Syria filled with Captagon. This highly addictive amphetamine-based drug has transformed the country into a narco-state under the rule of former President Bashar al-Assad. The alleged warehouse, reportedly located at a military division headquarters near Damascus under the command of Assad's brother Maher, highlights the scale of Captagon production in Syria.

"Crossing the Syrian border means paying fees to everyone – customs, the army, political security, and especially the Fourth Division," the smuggler told bnm IntelliNews.

"The Fourth Division is untouchable; they control everything and can move through checkpoints like they don't exist. Without them, Captagon smuggling wouldn't happen on this scale."

This elite unit, led by Maher al-Assad, is accused of controlling smuggling operations, including the Captagon trade. It enjoys extensive privileges that allow it to pass through checkpoints with minimal resistance, making it the most influential player in the drug trade.

A former Syrian officer stated that during the war the Fourth Division became a major smuggling route, with officers and soldiers exploiting their influence to smuggle drugs, weapons and goods to extremist elements.

In one instance, authorities in Idlib seized a large shipment containing hundreds of thousands of Captagon pills hidden in a truck from the regime-controlled town of Nubl in northern Aleppo. Over the past two years, Idlib authorities have confiscated more than 3mn Captagon pills.

Maher al-Assad, Bashar's brother, is believed to have orchestrated the promotion of Captagon inside Syria, aiming to generate profits to sustain a regime beset by sanctions and a deteriorating economy. With an average salary of $15 per month, many young people are drawn into working with drug dealers. Smugglers can earn between $10,000 and $14,000 per successful border crossing, though the risks can be fatal. A report by the BBC highlighted the tragic death of a child from the Ramthan clan – killed while smuggling drugs – underscoring the exploitation of children in these operations.

At a US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Syrian regime crimes in April 2023, it was stated that the drug trade is being used as a strategic tool by the Syrian regime to destabilise neighbouring countries, particularly Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The Fourth Division, led by Maher al-Assad, is the key player behind the trafficking, which generates resources for the regime and weakens its neighbours.

Reports confirm that most of the Captagon comes from regime-controlled areas, where the Fourth Division oversees production and distribution. No smuggler can operate without strong ties to the regime, and civilians, including women and children, are often used to transport the drugs. In opposition-held Idlib, drug shipments are smuggled through border crossings, sometimes hidden in refrigerated trucks.

Several Captagon factories are reported to be operating in regime-controlled areas, exporting their products to neighbouring countries such as the Gulf states and Turkey, as well as to Europe and Africa via the port of Latakia. These operations are believed to be overseen by the Fourth Division in collaboration with influential figures from the Assad family. The Captagon trade is viewed as both an economic and political tool to sustain the regime and destabilise its neighbours. Idlib is not only used as a transit hub for drugs, but its local youth are increasingly at risk from this growing epidemic. The export of Captagon to Gulf countries, Europe, and Africa highlights the far-reaching impact of the trade.

"Party-drug" shaping regional tensions

Described as the "poor man's cocaine," Captagon is a cheap, highly addictive stimulant often linked to violent and psychotic behaviour. Its trade has exploded in recent years, with annual market value estimates running into the billions. Captagon's production has provided an economic lifeline to the Assad regime amidst crippling sanctions imposed by the US and its allies.

In 2022, the US Treasury sanctioned several individuals linked to the Assad regime for their role in facilitating the Captagon trade. 

Those sanctioned included two of Assad's cousins and Khalid Qaddour, a close associate of Maher al-Assad, described as a "key producer and facilitator" in the drug's production.

Hezbollah and cross-border trafficking

The trafficking network extends beyond Syria. Jordanian officials have reported a significant increase in drug smuggling across their border, with many shipments being linked to Hezbollah, the Lebanese group heavily involved in facilitating Syria's drug trade. These operations are closely coordinated with Syria's Fourth Division.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has identified Syria and Lebanon as major departure points for Captagon shipments, with Saudi Arabia accounting for two-thirds of global seizures. Between 2014 and 2022, Saudi authorities confiscated 700mn Captagon pills smuggled from Lebanon.

Despite the devastating social impact, efforts to address the Captagon crisis have been slow. In 2023, the Biden administration introduced a strategy to combat the trade, focusing on Syria's production and Hezbollah's involvement. However, critics argue that international responses have been inadequate in countering the scale of the trade.

Captagon's expanding reach

Beyond the Gulf, Captagon's influence is spreading, with reports of its presence in North Africa, Europe and Southeast Asia. Its rise underscores the persistent instability in Syria, where both the humanitarian crisis and the emboldened drug trade remain by-products of the regime's survival tactics.

Syria's Captagon industry represents more than a criminal enterprise – it was a cornerstone of the Assad regime's economic and political strategy. Without decisive international action, the drug trade will continue to destabilise the region and pose a growing threat to global security.

In the first five months of 2023, authorities across the Middle East seized over 100mn Captagon pills, the most widely abused drug in the region, particularly among young people. Captagon, originally developed in the 1960s as a legal treatment for conditions such as ADHD, depression and narcolepsy, was withdrawn from the market in the 1980s due to harmful side-effects.

The rising prevalence of Captagon raises serious questions about the effectiveness of regional and international counter-narcotics strategies. This issue is not only about security but also has devastating health and social consequences. Despite official claims from the Syrian government that it is combating drug trafficking, evidence on the ground points to the involvement of powerful factions within the country.

Captagon highlights deep-seated corruption

In a notable case, a truck carrying two tonnes of hashish and 3mn Captagon pills was involved in a traffic accident en route to Tartus. The vehicle had no licence plates, a sign that it was likely connected to security forces or the military. Syrian sources identified the drivers as two brothers from Qardaha, the Assad family's stronghold. One was reported to work for state security, while the other allegedly had direct ties to the ruling family. This incident underscores the role of influential figures in facilitating smuggling operations without interference from security forces.

The issue is deeply rooted in extensive smuggling networks operating across the Lebanese-Syrian border. Lebanese authorities have uncovered large-scale operations to traffic Captagon into Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Investigations revealed the involvement of prominent drug traffickers working in coordination with armed groups and militias linked to the Syrian regime and Hezbollah.

These networks often store Captagon in remote locations before distributing it via an extensive smuggling infrastructure. While initial investigations faced significant challenges due to political interference, recent evidence has highlighted Hezbollah's role in facilitating drug trafficking within its areas of influence. There is also evidence of cooperation between criminal networks and the Syrian government, with drugs being transported across borders using unofficial routes shielded by regime support.

How Captagon broke Lebanon

Captagon has become a major revenue source for various militias and armed groups, including Hezbollah. Profits from the drug trade have funded these groups' activities in Lebanon and Syria, prolonging the Syrian civil war and contributing to Lebanon's internal conflicts.

The trade has also bolstered the political influence of these groups within Lebanon and neighbouring countries, including Iraq. International pressure has mounted on Lebanon and Syria, with sanctions imposed on individuals involved in drug trafficking, including figures within the Syrian regime.

In Lebanon, Captagon poses a serious threat to internal security. Smuggling networks operate in areas such as the Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah's influence is strongest. This has made it difficult for Lebanese authorities to dismantle these operations.

Reports indicate that drugs are cultivated and processed in Lebanese territories before being smuggled across borders. In response to the growing international threat, the Lebanese government has implemented stricter anti-narcotics laws and enhanced cooperation with international security agencies. However, political and security challenges within Lebanon limit the effectiveness of these measures.

 

SYRIA BLOG: Putin joins George W Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” club

Flashback: Putin addresses Russian servicemen with words that will come back to haunt Moscow during a surprise visit to Hmeimim air base in December 2017. / Screenshot

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By bne IntelliNews December 9, 2024

George W Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” 2003 victory speech aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln is memorable for having aged extremely badly, given how Iraq subsequently descended into a full-on hellish sectarian war, with US troops fighting on for eight more years. So you might think Vladimir Putin would have left no hostages to fortune where that particular infamous address from a podium was concerned.

Not so. In a surprise visit to Russia’s Hmeimim Air Base in Latakia Province, northwestern Syria, in December 2017, the Russian president told the assembled airmen and soldiers that it was indeed mission accomplished when it came to Moscow’s military intervention on behalf of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, in the multi-sided Syrian conflict.

So the weekend fall of Assad—whom Moscow, militarily tied up in Ukraine, hardly lifted a finger to help in the face of the lightning offensive that toppled him, though it has at least provided him with asylum in Russia—is egg on the face for Putin and a serious blow for Russia’s prestige.

In shoring up Assad nearly a decade ago, the Kremlin set out to re-assert itself as a global power. Another attraction of the military adventure was securing a foot in the eastern Mediterranean region. In return for saving Assad’s skin, Russia was awarded 49-year leases on the air base in Hmeimim and a naval base in Tartus. Whether Russia will now be forced to beat a retreat from those bases is one of the more intriguing questions thrown up by the hasty exit of Assad.

Should the bases be exposed to attacks from some of the less-than-Russia-friendly militia groups now in the ascendancy in their vicinity, perhaps Putin can cut a deal with Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan—who holds plenty of sway with jihadists and other armed groups across northern Syria—for some protection. Not what he had in mind all those years ago addressing Russian servicemen at Hmeimim. Either way, it is pretty much mission demolished.

George W Bush in 2003: Mission accomplished (apart from the eight years of hell to come). (Credit: file photo).

 Istanbul Blog

 After “conquering” Damascus, Erdogan turns his eye to the Kurds

Syria has gone green (jihadist) on the map since Assad's forces dissolved in the face of the offensive. / Syria.liveuamap.com

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By Akin Nazli in Belgrade December 9, 2024

Turkey-backed jihadist groups supported by combat drones sent in by the Turkish armed forces have been attacking the town of Manbij in northern Syria held by Kurdish groups, footage continued to show on December 9.

On December 8, just a few hours after Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) declared Syria’s Assad regime was overthrown, the jihadist groups—which are units within the Syrian National Army (SNA, formerly the Free Syrian Army FSA/OSO)—launched an offensive against the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that control the Rojava region.

In the years prior to the Aleppo offensive that quickly culminated in an advance that caused the fall of the Assad regime at the weekend, the HTS dwelled and evolved under the patronage of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s regime on the border with Turkey, while the SNA was directly established by Ankara.

Actin together, the HTS and SNA launched the surprise Aleppo offensive on November 27, a few hours after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon took effect.

Within 12 days, they took over Damascus without facing significant resistance from Assad’s forces. Military analysts assess that in terms of their rate of conquest, they may have broken the record set by the Taliban, which took over Afghanistan in 2021 within three and a half months.

Next stop Iraq?

The Russians look like they may have already traded Syria in the hope of securing some gains in other matters (perhaps the calculation is related to Ukraine, where a ceasefire is cooking with Donald Trump on his way back to the White House on January 20). Iran, meanwhile, has failed to mobilise its proxies in Lebanon, namely Hezbollah, and in Iraq, namely Hasdh-i Shabi.

Since Hamas launched its kamikaze cross-border strike from Gaza against Israel on  October 7 last year, Iran has lost its influence in Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. With the fall of Syria, it has also lost its land route connection to Palestine and Lebanon via Syrian territory. Both Palestine and Lebanon are under an Israeli naval and air blockade.

The next stop for Israel, prior to Tehran, looks like Iran’s proxies in Iraq.

Tayyip the Conqueror

If the security conditions allow for it, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan will soon visit Damascus, where he will pray at the Umayyad Mosque in the former Syrian capital (we can say “former capital” because it is questionable right now as to whether a country called Syria still exists).

On December 5, bne IntelliNews reported that the Erdogan regime was hailing its “reconquest of Aleppo”.

This publication also recalled that Erdogan said in 2012, the year after the Syrian conflict ignited: “We’ll go to Damascus soon, inshallah… and we’ll pray at Umayyad Mosque.”

On December 7, this publication reported that Erdogan had set Damascus as the final target for his jihadists.

The Erdogan regime plainly sees the latest developments as Erdogan’s victory over Bashar Assad. That’s not particularly wrongheaded if things are evaluated from a perspective that takes what was a 13-year-long battle between two neighbouring autocrats into account.

In 2011, Erdogan participated in the coalition that came together to overthrow Assad. As of December 2024, Erdogan remains the ruler in Ankara, with his proxies having forced Assad to flee to Moscow.

For those who keep an eye on the mouthpieces of the Erdogan regime, it would be no surprise if Erdogan crowns himself as “Tayyip the Conqueror” at the Umayyad Mosque.

His media will, in any case, go live during his prayers and his trolls will decode the message.

On December 9, cement stocks on Borsa Istanbul jumped to celebrate the boss’ booty, namely Syria, which needs to be reconstructed.

Will Erdogan conquer the Eastern Euphrates too?

Manbij is now the only territory held by the Kurds on the western bank of the Euphrates river since, on December 4, they left some territory, including the town of Tal Rifat, to Erdogan’s jihadists.

Until the fall of Damascus, no significant clash between Erdogan's jihadists and the Kurds in this wave of conflict had taken place as the jihadists were too busy targeting the Assad regime.

The Erdogan regime has for a while now been holding talks with Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan, who has been imprisoned in Turkey since 1999. The direction of the latest round of bargaining with the PKK, designated “terrorist” by Ankara, will be tested out by the developments in Syria.

Since Assad fled, Erdogan and his henchmen have been focusing on the Kurds.

In the years since Moscow intervened in Syria in 2015, Russia and the US have divided its airspace. The US controls the airspace in the eastern Euphrates region.

Consequently, the land held by Kurds on the western bank of the river do not enjoy US cover.

So, the real question is whether Trump will sacrifice the eastern Euphrates region when the Erdogan regime targets it after finishing its business on the western bank by taking over Manbij.

Syrian migrants in Turkey not eager to live under “Taliban II”

Erdogan’s officials have been circulating the idea that the Syrians who fled their homeland for Turkey are now in a rush to return to their country following the exit of Assad.

Based on official Turkish figures, there are around 3-4mn Syrians in Turkey. The actual figure is widely estimated to be around 5-7mn.

The return to Syria of a few thousand pro-jihadist Syrians would not put a dent in the massive problem posed to Turkey by hosting such a huge migrant population.

Looking beyond only Syrians, the total number of irregular immigrants in Turkey is estimated as standing at above 10mn, including 1-2mn Afghans and millions of people from African and other Asian countries.

These people are not in Turkey by choice. Turkey is on the route to Europe. They are largely working and saving up money in Turkey to pay human smugglers who will take them on to developed countries.

Prior to the jihadist takeover of Syria, videos showing beaches and parties in the country got plenty of “hits” and “clicks” in Turkey. Within two weeks, the country has been turned upside down.

Under the rule of the jihadists, Syria will become a second Afghanistan. It will not be an attractive spot for people that dream of a normal life.

What to expect now?

Syria is still in chaos. It is unknown whether the jihadists will be able to put together a functioning state anytime soon.

Opportunistic Israel, meanwhile, has been expanding the Syrian territory it controls in the south (purple on the map), while bombing ammunition sites and equipment left behind by Syria's army.

The Russians have been withdrawing but they still have some personnel and equipment left at their military bases on the Mediterranean coast.

The jihadists have so far not fought each other. In the coming days, as the diplomatic bargaining on the future of the country intensifies, those doing the bargaining—the list currently includes the US, Russia, Iran, Turkey, the UAE, Israel, Qatar and Saudi Arabia among others—will mobilise their proxies among the jihadists to strengthen their hand at the table.

Looking at where we are now, there are presently jihadists (green on the map) and Kurds (yellow) in the country, in addition to limited areas held by Israel and Islamic State (black).

The situation in Syria is precarious and will definitely not stabilise in the coming months, and perhaps not in the coming years.

DECRIMINALIZE DRUGS

Captagon connection: how Syria became a narco state

Rouba EL HUSSEINI, Jean Marc MOJON
Wed, November 2, 2022 


LONG READ

A decade of appalling civil war has left Syria fragmented and in ruins but one thing crosses every front line: a drug called captagon.

The stimulant -- once notorious for its association with Islamic State fighters -- has spawned an illegal $10 billion industry that not only props up the pariah regime of President Bashar al-Assad, but many of his enemies.

It has turned Syria into the world's latest narco state, and sunk deep roots in neighbouring Lebanon as its economy has collapsed.

Captagon is now by far Syria's biggest export, dwarfing all its legal exports put together, according to estimates drawn from official data by AFP.


An amphetamine derived from a once-legal treatment for narcolepsy and attention disorder, it has become a huge drug in the Gulf, with Saudi Arabia by far the biggest market.

AFP interviewed smugglers, a fixer who puts together multi-million dollar deals, and 30 serving and former law enforcement officers from Syria and beyond, as well as diplomats and drug experts in a bid to grasp the scope of the phenomenon.


Given the danger of speaking publicly -- particularly for those inside the trade -- the majority asked for their identities to be protected.

- 'I can work for days' -

In Saudi Arabia, captagon is often talked of as a party drug, but its hold extends far beyond the gilded lifestyles of the kingdom's wealthy elite.

Cheap, discreet and less taboo than alcohol, many poorer Saudis and migrant workers go to work on the drug.

"I can work for two or three days non-stop, which has doubled my earnings and is helping me pay off my debts," said Faisal, a skinny 20-year-old newlywed from a working-class background, who spends 150 riyals a week ($40) on the pills.

"I finish my first job exhausted in the early hours of the morning," but the drug helps him push through to drive for a ride-hailing service.

An Egyptian construction worker told AFP that he began taking the pills after his boss secretly slipped some into his coffee so he could work faster and longer.

"In time my colleagues and I became addicted," he added.

The retail price of a pill varies wildly from $25 for the premium tablets sold to the Saudi jetset to low quality adulterated pills that go for a dollar.

Many begin their journey to the Gulf in the lawless badlands between Syria and Lebanon.

- Border barons and tribal networks -

Hidden behind dark glasses and a mask in the middle of a vineyard in the Bekaa Valley, a Lebanese fixer and trafficker told AFP how he organised the shipments.

"Four or five big names typically partner up and split the cost of a shipment of say $10 million to cover raw material, transport and bribes," he said.

"The cost is low and the profits high," he said, adding that even if only one shipment out of 10 gets through, "you are still a winner".

"There's a group of more than 50 barons... They are one big web, Syrians, Lebanese and Saudis."

While the captagon trade spans several countries, many key players have tribal ties, particularly through the Bani Khaled, a Bedouin confederation that reaches from Syria and Lebanon to Jordan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

A shipment can stay within the Bani Khaled's sphere of influence the whole way from manufacture in Syria to delivery in Saudi Arabia, said multiple sources, including a smuggler, an intelligence officer and Syrian army deserters.

The economics of the trade are dizzying.

More than 400 million pills were seized in the Middle East and beyond in 2021, according to official figures, with seizures this year set to top that.

Customs and anti-narcotics officials told AFP that for every shipment they seize, another nine make it through.

That means even with a low average price of $5 per tablet, and only four out of five shipments getting through, captagon is at least a $10 billion industry.

With Syria the source of 80 percent of the world's supply, according to security services, the trade is at least worth three times its entire national budget.

- Assad's brother -

The Syrian state is at the heart of the trade in Assad-controlled areas, narcotics experts say.

The shadowy network of warlords and profiteers Assad indebted himself to to win the war has benefited hugely from it, including Lebanon's powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah group, which experts say plays a significant role in protecting the trade along the Lebanese border.

"Syria is in dire need of foreign currency, and this industry is capable of filling the treasury through a shadow economy from importing raw materials to manufacturing and finally exporting" the pills, an ex-Syrian government adviser now outside the country told AFP.

One major mover keeps coming up ==in all the AFP interviews -- Assad's much-feared brother Maher, the de facto head of Syria's elite unit, the 4th Division.

A dozen sources told AFP that the division was deeply involved in the trade, including smugglers, a regional law and order official, a former Syrian intelligence officer, a member of a tribe that smuggles captagon and a pharmaceutical industry insider.

The British Army-linked CHACR think tank and the independent Center for Operations Analysis and Research (COAR) have also pointed the finger at Assad's brother.

The Syrian authorities did not reply to AFP requests for comment after being contacted at the United Nations and through the country's embassy in Paris.

"Maher al-Assad is one of the main beneficiaries of the captagon trade," said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"He receives his own share from the profit. Drug money has become a main source to pay the salaries of an armed group affiliated with the 4th Division," he added.

Some captagon labs get "the raw material directly from the 4th Division, sometimes in military bags", said a Syria monitor, with a trafficker telling AFP that it even supplied rebel groups opposed to the regime.

The division controls large parts of the porous border with Lebanon that is key to the trade, with the Mediterranean port of Latakia another of its bastions.

Caroline Rose, of the Washington-based Newlines Institute, said it has "played an active role in guarding, facilitating and running a lot of captagon in Homs and Latakia" and then "transporting shipments to state-owned ports".

The Lebanese frontier, which has never been clearly demarcated, has long been a happy hunting ground for smugglers, with captagon operations now booming in the north.

"Wadi Khaled is the new hub, the place is full of traffickers," a judicial source told AFP, referring to a remote northern border region where much of the population on the Lebanese side identifies as Syrian.

At the height of the war, arms were smuggled into Syria through Wadi Khaled. Now captagon and migrants attempting to make the perilous crossing to Europe flow in the other direction.

- Rebel involvement -

The southern Syrian provinces of Sweida and Daraa, which border Jordan, are other key smuggling routes to Saudi Arabia, with the latter also home to many drug labs.

Sweida teems with gangs transporting captagon, with Bedouin tribes bringing consignments down from major production plants around Damascus and Homs.

"The smuggling is organised by the tribes who live in the desert in coordination with over 100 small armed gangs," said Abu Timur, a spokesman for the local Al-Karama armed group.

Across Syria the money to be made from captagon trumps old enmities.

"Captagon brought together all the warring parties of the conflict... The government, the opposition, the Kurds and ISIS," the ex-Syrian government adviser said.

Even in the north, home to the last pockets where rebel and jihadist groups are holding out against Assad, the drug has forged unlikely alliances.

"I work with people in Homs and Damascus who receive the pills from 4th Division depots," a smuggler in the Turkish-dominated region told AFP.

"My job is to distribute the pills here or to coordinate with rebel groups to send them to Turkey," he said.

"This job is very dangerous and very easy at the same time."

The trafficker said he also sold pills to leaders from the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham jihadist group that dominates the Idlib enclave in northwestern Syria.

He said myriad groups working as Turkish proxies and under the rebel umbrella known as the Syrian National Army (SNA) had aggressively moved in on the captagon business recently.

"The area is teeming with rebel groups. It's a jungle, everyone is hungry out there and wants to eat," he said.

He said the new captagon kingpin in the region is Abu Walid Ezza, a commander from the Sultan Murad faction of the SNA.

"He has very good relations with the 4th Division, since he used to be based in Homs," the trafficker said. "He brings excellent pills."

The faction told AFP they had nothing to do with the trade.

Turkish players are also deeply involved, said one regional judicial investigator.

"Diethyl ether, a kind of chloroform, is one of the main precursors needed for (making) captagon, and most of it enters from Turkey," the source said.

- Candy machine -

Beyond the chemicals, the biggest investment for a captagon lab is a tablet press or candy-making machine.

One Chinese website even advertises a "captagon tablet press" for $2,500 that can spew out tens of thousands of pills an hour.

For a few dollars more you can get the pill stamps with captagon's trademark logo -- the two Cs that have earned it the nickname "Abu al-hilalain" (two crescent moons).

Once the chemical precursors have been procured, it only takes 48 hours to set up a captagon manufacturing laboratory with relatively rudimentary equipment.

Which means even when drug units swoop, the captagon cooks can quickly start working again. They have even been known to set up mobile labs in the back of utility vans, especially after a recent clampdown in eastern Lebanon.

The Syrian government also acts but most seizures "are nothing but pure farce... the enforcers are themselves the thieves," said a Syrian pharmaceutical company worker interviewed outside the country. Some pharma plants are also involved in the trade, he added.

Slick videos from Saudi Arabia's customs and police boast of how they are battling captagon with state-of-the-art detection technology and dog units.

But senior security and judicial officials in the region told AFP that the traffickers are always a step ahead.

"At (Lebanon's) Tripoli port, for example, the scanner always needs repairing on the wrong day, or is inadvertently switched off," said a senior Lebanese official.

"And when arrests are made, the security services always bring the driver to court, the only guy who doesn't know anything," the official added.

Corruption also helps to load the dice in the smugglers' favour. Several anti-narcotics officials told AFP that some senior officials were on the take and had even sold off seized drugs

- 'Captagon king' –

"Captagon king" Hassan Dekko used to run his empire out of the Lebanese border village of Tfail, which sits at the tip of a tongue of land jutting into Syria north of Damascus.

But Dekko, a binational with high-level political connections in both countries, was arrested in April last year after major captagon seizures.

In court documents obtained by AFP, Dekko denied any involvement in drug trafficking.

But anti-narcotics chiefs in Lebanon claim that some of the businesses he owns, including a pesticide factory in Jordan, a car dealership in Syria and a fleet of tanker trucks, are common covers for drug barons.


However, a senior security official said Dekko's influence had been on the wane.

Several security sources as well as deserters from the Syrian army described Syrian MP Amer Khiti, who is under US sanctions, as another major figure in the business.

"Khiti is involved in smuggling captagon," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed, and he has also been named in CHACR and COAR reports.

One of his workers told AFP that he had seen captagon being delivered to a warehouse near Damascus.

"He is a good man. We don't care what he does, so long as he helps the people," the employee said.

"The Khiti family has been involved in this since before the war. They used to put pills in plastic bags and stitch them inside sheep" to smuggle them, he added.

Khiti could not be reached for comment.

- 'No smoking gun' -

With no end in sight to their economic and political crises, the fear is that captagon will become an even bigger pillar of life in Syria and Lebanon, where up to a fifth of the pills are produced.

Multiple sources told AFP that the captagon barons have built strong political connections there.

"Syria became the global epicentre of captagon production by conscious choice," said Ian Larson, chief Syria analyst at the COAR political risk consultancy.

With its economy crippled by war and sanctions, "Damascus had few good options", he added.

From the Syrian regime officials and millionaire businessmen at the top of the chain down to the villagers and refugees employed to cook and conceal the drugs, captagon dollars get spread far and wide in both countries.

"There is still no smoking gun directly linking Bashar al-Assad to the captagon industry, and we shouldn't necessarily expect to find one," said Larson, who has written extensively on the drug.

On September 20, the US House of Representatives passed an act with the catchy acronym CAPTAGON -- Countering Assad's Proliferation Trafficking And Garnering Of Narcotics Act -- but the drug has generally received scant attention in Western policy-making circles.

Meanwhile, both the dealers and those tracking them believe the captagon era is only just beginning.

"The trade will never stop, generation after generation will keep working in it," the Lebanese fixer insisted.

A senior judicial source agreed. "They are never convicted and the money is huge. Give me one reason why this would stop."

(Additional reporting by Haitham el-Tabei in Saudi Arabia and Patrick Lee in Kuala Lumpur.)

‘Captagon connection’: How Syria became a narco state

A smuggler describes the inner workings of the captagon trade in northern Syria, where the stimulant is trafficked across frontlines between areas under the control of Syrian government forces, Turkish-backed rebels, and the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham jihadist group. "It's a jungle out there, everyone is hungry and everyone wants to eat.” The stimulant – once notorious for its association with Islamic State group fighters – has spawned an illegal $10-billion industry.

 

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for CAPTAGON 

‘A dirty business’: how one drug is turning Syria into a narco-state

Martin Chulov 

Middle East correspondent

THE GUARDIAN 

In the summer of 2015 a businessman in the Syrian province of Latakia was approached by a powerful security chief, seeking a favour. The official wanted the merchant, an importer of medical supplies, to source large amounts of a drug called fenethylline from abroad. The regime, he said, would readily buy the lot.

© Provided by The Guardian Photograph: 

AP A Saudi customs officer opens imported pomegranates containing Captagon pills in Jeddah.

After an internet search, the merchant made a decision. He left his home that same week, first sending his wife and children to exile, then following after, scrounging what he could from his businesses for a new start. “I know what they were asking me to do,” he said from his new home in Paris. “They wanted the main ingredient for Captagon. And that drug is a dirty business.”


Other businessmen in Syria’s north have not shared his reservations. The manufacture of Captagon in the regime heartland has become one of Syria’s only recent business success stories; a growth industry so big and sophisticated that it is starting to rival the GDP of the flatlining economy itself.

From the ruins of Syria, and the similarly disastrous collapse across the border in Lebanon, where this week a shipment of Captagon hidden in pomegranates and exported from Beirut was found by Saudi officials, a reality is crystallising: both countries are fast becoming narco-states - if they have not met that definition already.

© Provided by The Guardian Captagon is one of several brand names for the drug compound fenethylline hydrochloride. Photograph: NapoliPress/Rex/Shutterstock

Before last Sunday’s seizure of millions of Captagon pills, which led to a ban in Saudi Arabia on all agricultural imports from Lebanon, at least 15 other shipments of the drug had been intercepted in the Middle East and Europe in the past two years. Six police and intelligence officials in the Middle East and Europe have told the Guardian that all were shipped from Syria’s Captagon heartland, or across the frontier in Lebanon, where a network of untouchables – crime families, militia leaders and political figures – have formed cross-border cartels that make and distribute industrial scale quantities of drugs.

“They are very dangerous people,” said one senior official in Beirut. “They are scared of no one. They hide in plain sight.”

Captagon is one of several brand names for the drug compound fenethylline hydrochloride. A stimulant with addictive properties, it is used recreationally across the Middle East and is sometimes called a “poor man’s cocaine”. It is also used by armed groups and regular forces in battle situations, where it is seen as having properties that boost courage and numb fears.

For all intents and purposes, the border between both countries is redundant, a lawless zone where smugglers operate with the complicity of officials on both sides. The smugglers move precursors and finished products, both hashish and Captagon, along a route that takes in Lebanon’s Bekaa valley, the Syrian border town of Qusayr and the roads north through the Alawite heartland of the Assad regime, towards the ports of Latakia and Tartus.

© Provided by The Guardian The port of Latakia is favoured by smugglers. Photograph: Louai Beshara/AFP/Getty Images

Latakia in particular has been under the intense scrutiny of European and American police and intelligence agencies. A cousin of the Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad, Samer al-Assad is an influential figure at the port. According to the exiled merchant and three other Latakia businessmen, anyone who wants to operate must pay a substantial cut from proceeds in return for access to networks and protection. Despite the scrutiny on the port, few interdictions have been made at the source. Instead the roll call of hauls found since 2019 has rivalled the heyday of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel for scale and efficiency.

They include five tonnes of Captagon tablets found in Greece in July that year, two similar hauls in Dubai in subsequent months, and four tonnes of hashish uncovered in the Egyptian city of Port Said in April 2020, wrapped in the packaging of the Milkman company. At the time the company was owned by the regime tycoon Rami Makhlouf.

There was also a Captagon shipment to Saudi Arabia hidden in tea leaves, as well as seizures in Romania, Jordan, Bahrain and Turkey. In July last year, the biggest ever haul of the drug, with a street value of more than €1bn (£870m), was intercepted in the Italian port of Salerno, which is believed to have been intended as a waypoint en route to Dubai.

© Provided by The Guardian Naples law enforcement officers inspect a huge seizure of Captagon tablets in Salerno in July 2020. Photograph: Ciro Fusco/EPA

The consignment was hidden in paper rolls and machinery sent from a printing plant in Aleppo, and officials in Rome initially blamed the import on the Islamic State terror group. Last December, blame was shifted to the powerful Lebanese militia-cum-political bloc Hezbollah. The party denies involvement and claims it has no hand in a regional and global trade in Captagon that is rapidly becoming associated with both failing states.

The research organisation the Centre for Operational Analysis and Research, which focuses on Syria, this week released a report highlighting the role of Captagon and hashish in the country, where the economy has been crippled by a decade of war, western sanctions, entrenched corruption and the collapse of Lebanon, where billions of dollars have disappeared in the pit of the country’s banking system.

“Syria is a narco-state with two primary drugs of concern: hashish and the amphetamine-type stimulant Captagon,” the report says. “Syria is the global epicentre of Captagon production, which is now more industrialised, adaptive, and technically sophisticated than ever.

“In 2020, Captagon exports from Syria reached a market value of at least $3.46bn [£2.5bn]. Though conjectural, a market ceiling significantly higher than this is distinctly possible. Although Captagon trafficking was once among the funding streams utilised by anti-state armed groups, consolidation of territorial control has enabled the Assad regime and its key regional allies to cement their role as the prime beneficiaries of the Syrian narcotics trade.”

An exiled former regime insider who retains connections with some officials inside the country said: “The war in Syria has not only caused the death of hundreds of thousands, over 6 million refugees, 8 million internally displaced, around 1 million injured, [and] the complete destruction of towns and cities, but [also] a total collapse of the economy following the Lebanese banking crisis, followed by the pandemic and the Caesar Act [of US sanctions] which has turned the country officially into a ‘narco-state’ … with a few regime businessmen and warlords turning into drug lords.

“At the start of the conflict, $1 was equal to 50 Syrian pounds. The exchange rate dropped but managed to stay at 500-600 Syrian pounds throughout eight years of the war until the Lebanese crisis began in 2019. Then we started seeing the total collapse of both currencies simultaneously, which shows how interconnected they are. Lebanon had been acting as Syria’s respirator. And it suddenly lost its oxygen supply.”

Several months after the Latakia merchant fled Syria, a visitor arrived in Lebanon on a private jet from Saudi Arabia. His name was Prince Abdulmohsen bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, a member of the royal family, then in his late 20s. As the prince prepared to fly home, on 26 October 2015, he was arrested, allegedly with two tonnes of Captagon pills in his luggage. For the next four years, he was held in a room above a police station in Beirut’s Hamra district, where he was given more perks than other prisoners as negotiations for his release continued.

“He was set up by Hezbollah,” said a Lebanese intelligence official. “He walked right into a trap, and it took them [Riyadh] a long time to free him, because the people here were looking for the right prize for him. The state was not involved. It was all made to go away. The right people were paid, and he went home in 2019. Captagon can get things done.”