Jean-Pierre Filiu:
'Crimes against humanity, war crimes, organized massacres, systematic rapes, campaigns of enforced disappearances, expulsion of entire populations, the list is long of the crimes already attributed to Bashar al-Assad. Convinced of his impunity, the Syrian dictator has now added the offence of massive production and aggressive marketing of narcotics. The Syrian territory under the control of the Assad régime has indeed become the main production area for captagon, an amphetamine for which Saudi Arabia is the world's largest market. It is then the networks affiliated with the Assad régime which, especially from Lebanon, are responsible for transporting shipments of this drug to the Arabian Peninsula.
When Hafez al-Assad sent his army to occupy a good part of Lebanon in 1976, he wasted no time in taking his tithe on the already flourishing hashish in the Lebanese plain of Bekaa, then he encouraged the development of poppy cultivation there. Laboratories for transforming locally produced opium into heroin are set up under the control of the occupying Syrian army. The barons of the Assad régime who manage this traffic with great profit recruit for this purpose in Syria bands of gangsters, nicknamed shabbiha, the "ghosts". General Ali Douba, head of military intelligence, is at the head of this de facto cartel, before being marginalized by Bashar al-Assad, who succeeded his father Hafez, in 2000, as absolute master of Syria. The withdrawal of the Syrian contingent from Lebanon in 2005, under popular pressure, completed the closure of this first mafia cycle of the Syrian dictatorship.
A second cycle began a few years ago, this time in Syrian territory under the control of the Assad régime. The supply has in this case adjusted to the very strong demand for captagon in Saudi Arabia, where the popularity of this amphetamine is undeniable. This synthetic dopant, initially based on fenetylline, is referred to as the “Father of the Two Crescents” ( Abou al-hilâlayn ), because of the two crossed Cs which constitute its trademark. The descent into Syria's militia hell was accompanied by the flowering of local captagon manufacturing workshops, first to supply the fighters with artificial stimulants, then to ensure a source of foreign currency for the local forces. It is in this context that Daesh jihadists have developed their own manufacture of captagon, smuggled either to Turkey or to pro-Assad areas. But the territorial reconquest of the Assad régime, with the major help of the Russian air force and, on the ground, of the pro-Iranian militias, poses it today as the undisputed leader of the captagon on a regional scale.
The international sanctions affecting the Assad régime have pushed it to a proactive policy of production and marketing of captagon. Operational responsibility lies with the president's younger brother, General Maher al-Assad, head of the Fourth Division, the régime's praetorian guard, already involved in numerous killings and abuses. The captagon production workshops are protected by Syrian soldiers in uniform, even installed in a military zone with restricted access. The tight network of Fourth Division roadblocks throughout the territory under the control of the Assad régime allows the smooth circulation of cargoes of amphetamine. An investigation published last month by the “New York Times”designates two notorious war profiteers as the main “civilian” relays of such trafficking: one, Amer Khiti, was rewarded for his loyal services with a seat as a deputy during the legislative “elections” of July 2020; the other, Khodr Taher, has, in the same spirit, been decorated by President Assad with the Order of Merit.
This mafia reconversion has enabled Bashar al-Assad, firmly supported by his brother Maher, to manage the tensions which have recently shaken the ruling circle, with the ambitions displayed by the "first lady", Asma al-Assad, and the unprecedented revolt of Ibrahim Makhlouf , cousin of the Head of State. The already close ties between the Syrian dictatorship and the Lebanese Hezbollah have been further strengthened by the need to export captagon from Lebanon to Saudi Arabia. The latter, exasperated by the growing number of seizures of amphetamine, camouflaged in fruits and vegetables from Lebanon, decided, last April, an embargo on agricultural imports from this country. The Syrian régime then fell back on the Jordanian border which, as soon as it reopened in August 2021, was the scene of attempts to infiltrate major captagon shipments. A drone loaded with amphetamines was even shot down as it left Syrian territory. And, last Sunday, a Jordanian officer was killed in a clash with Syrian traffickers. Jordanian authorities estimate that a fifth of the drugs destined for Saudi Arabia could be consumed in Jordan during transit, a catastrophic prospect for a country hitherto spared from narcotics.
It would obviously take more to dissuade the Assad régime from pursuing, or even intensifying, such a lucrative traffic. The Syrian despot can in any case boast of having transformed his country into the first narco-state worthy of the name in the Middle East.'
No comments:
Post a Comment