Jordanian Army Accuses Damascus, Tehran of Sponsoring Drug Smuggling Into Kingdom

Growing traffic finances terrorism and damages Jordanian and Gulf societies

Iran and Syria are sponsoring drug gangs and drug smuggling into Jordan, a Jordanian military spokesperson says.

“We are facing a war along the borders, a drug war led by organizations supported by foreign parties. These Iranian militias are the most dangerous because they target Jordan’s national security,” Col. Mustafa al-Hiyari, head of the kingdom’s Military Information Directorate told Al-Mamlaka television last week.

Since January, Jordanian security forces have killed 40 drug smugglers and wounded hundreds of others along the country’s border with Syria in an effort to stem the traffic.

Hiyari discussed the damage the drugs inflict.

“Smuggling now targets Jordanian society, the Jordanian family, relationships, and the values ​​of members of the Jordanian society,” he said.

Katrina Sammour, a Jordanian geopolitical and counterterrorism analyst with a focus on ISIS, youth protests, and active disinformation, told The Media Line that extensive research showed that numerous Hizbullah- and Iranian-backed militias are behind the production and smuggling of drugs into Jordan.

This, she said, is assisted by factions of the Syrian army. “The factories and later smugglers are provided with security from the Fourth Armored Division that is under the command of Maher al-Assad [Syrian President Bashar Assad’s brother].

“Widespread corruption and the dismal economic situation among members of the Syrian army facilitate the various smuggling attempts,” Sammour said.

Dr. Abdullah AbuZaid, a Jordanian security and justice expert, explained to The Media Line that the Syrian civil war, which started in 2011, has severely worsened this phenomenon.

Since the recent disintegration of the Syrian state, “drug smuggling operations by gangs have been active. The disintegration of the regime and the loss of control over the country put great pressure on the Jordanian authorities to control the borders unilaterally,” AbuZaid said.

Dr. Piotr Pietrzak, an expert on the Middle East and the Islamic world, explained to The Media Line that since the beginning of the war, Syria has emerged as a hotspot for making and smuggling hashish, Captagon and other illegal, counterfeited amphetamine synthetics.

Still, he pointed out that an illegal drug industry flourished in Syria even before the outbreak of the civil war.

Sammour noted that there are multiple drug production and distribution factories and hubs in Syria. The ones that concern Jordan the most, she said, are located in As-Suwayda and Nawa in the southwest of the country, near the border.

AbuZaid added that some regions in Lebanon and Turkey are also producers of these drugs that end up being smuggled into Jordan.

This is in addition to Iran, he said, “which constitutes a major and main source of large quantities of drugs due to the existence of gangs specialized in this and because of its proximity to drug-producing countries such as Afghanistan.”

According to Sammour, most of the drugs are destined for the Gulf states. “Saudi Arabia is a big consumption market for Captagon, and a lot of the drugs end up also in Europe through North African countries,” she said.

Pietrzak noted that the Hashemite Kingdom shares a long and particularly porous border with Syria, “which geographically exposes this country to the position of the world’s most important gateway and transit zone for smuggling operations from Syria and Lebanon to the largest drug consumption markets in different regions.”

However, AbuZaid pointed out that whole Jordan was previously seen as a corridor for drug trafficking, today much of the merchandise stays in the country.

For the last 10 years, he explained, Jordan has suffered high unemployment and a bad economy. As a result, there are merchants living in border cities who have turned from legitimate trade to drug trafficking, which has led to a significant increase in the number of drug abusers in the kingdom.

“There is a demand for drugs, and as long as there is a great demand, there will be smuggling attempts to meet these needs,” AbuZaid said.

Sammour added, “The [revenue from the] drug trade is three times the size of the Syrian national economy.”

“Drug smuggling is a very profitable business,” said Pietrzak.

He added that some groups’ prime motivation is to get rich. However, other, more political parties use their narco-trafficking and smuggling activity to finance their political/terrorist activity.

AbuZaid said some of the revenue has been used to finance terrorism, and we cannot rule out that “there are parties that may target the security of Jordan and the security of some of the neighboring Gulf states by dumping drugs in these countries and destroying them.”

Jordan has been able to thwart multiple smuggling operations, but both the number and the violence of the criminals are on the rise, said Sammour.

That is why, she added, “Jordan needs support logistically and financially not only from regional partners but international ones as well.”

AbuZaid agrees. “It inevitably needs help to provide it with electronic equipment and modern radars that allow it to control the desert border areas and monitor them effectively, in addition to equipment for inspecting vehicles and trucks that enter regularly,” he said.

The kingdom also needs neighboring countries’ help in terms of equipment and modern technologies, as well as in coordinating intelligence work and operations to control and dismantle gangs at their roots, he continued.

This help should come from all donor countries, including the European Union, the US, and the Gulf states, as well as from the countries neighboring Jordan, AbuZaid said.

The true scale of Syria’s drug exports is unknown, but more drugs were seized on the Syria-Jordan border in the first quarter of 2022 than in all of 2021, noted Pietrzak.

“In April 2022 alone, 5 million Captagon pills were intercepted in countries in Syria’s immediate neighborhood with a potential street value of half a billion dollars. This is a small proportion of the drugs smuggled through this route,” Pietrzak said.