Как сирийская торговля каптагоном переместилась в Сувейду после падения Асада

How Syria’s captagon trade shifted to Sweida after Assad’s fall Submitted by Reem Aouir on Thu, 06/04/2026 - 12:50 Once a key smuggling corridor, Sweida has emerged as the drug's new hub in Syria, fuelled by weak state control and ongoing Israeli support for local armed factions A member of the Syrian security forces empties a sack of captagon into a ditch to burn them in a field near the Fourth Division's Security Bureau on the outskirts of Damascus on 19 January 2025 (Bakr al-Kasem/AFP) Off As Syria's new authorities dismantle the remnants of Bashar al-Assad's captagon empire, attention is increasingly turning to the southern province of Sweida. Once primarily a transit route for narcotics destined for Jordan and the Gulf, local investigations and regional security data suggest the province has evolved into one of the country's most important centres for drug trafficking since Assad's fall in December 2024. For years under the former authorities, the multi-billion-dollar industry of the cheaply produced and addictive amphetamine operated as a de facto source of state wealth. Western and regional security officials long accused the elite Fourth Armoured Division led by Assad's brother Maher and the Military Intelligence Directorate of running a network of factories that, at its peak, produced an estimated 80 per cent of the world's supply of captagon, a figure cited by the UK government in 2023. Yet, even as the transitional government in Damascus systematically dismantles this inherited legacy infrastructure, reports say trafficking networks have swiftly adapted. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); According to an investigation by the local outlet Suwayda 24 , while “major political changes swept through the country, the captagon empire in southern Syria, specifically in the Sweida governorate, was quietly reconstituting itself”. “While manufacturing facilities were dismantled in other areas, the drug trade in Sweida remained controlled by local forces who maintained their positions, transforming the governorate into a ‘strategic reservoir’ for raw materials and drugs stockpiled by the previous regime,” it added. For years, the southern province served as a key transit corridor for narcotics moving through Jordan and onwards to the Gulf, with the authorities relying heavily on local Bedouin tribes and Druze to facilitate the cross-border smuggling. Data collated by Syria Weekly indicates that drug trafficking from Sweida towards Jordan surged by more than 325 per cent following last July's takeover of the province by the Druze-led National Guard, a force that has received political and military support from Israel . While Jordan intercepted 21 trafficking attempts from the area between January and July 2025, that figure soared to 128 interceptions over the next nine months. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); This surge comes despite a forceful anti-narcotics campaign by Syria’s new government elsewhere in the country. Since taking power, the administration of President Ahmad al-Sharaa has dismantled 15 industrial-level laboratories and 13 smaller storage facilities, seizing more than 500 million tablets between December 2024 and November 2025 alone, according to data shared by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Jordan’s border escalation Sweida's strategic location, bordering Jordan, has made developments in the province particularly concerning for Amman, which views drug trafficking as one of its most pressing national security threats. Those concerns have grown significantly since the sectarian violence that broke out in Sweida in July 2025, which reportedly killed as many as 1,700 people and further deepened the province's isolation from Damascus, opening the door to outside patrons. In the aftermath of the fighting, more than 40 Druze factions merged under the National Guard and effectively assumed control of the governorate after government forces withdrew. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Israel, which has long presented itself as a protector of Syria's Druze minority, expanded its support for Druze armed groups following the unrest. Israel views a fragmented and autonomous southern Syria as a strategic buffer against any unified government in Damascus. Sweida after the ceasefire: Executions, a mass grave, and the voices left behind Read More » Field sources quoted by Suwayda 24 estimate that between 12 and 15 captagon production facilities were operating across the province, ranging from permanent factories to mobile presses concealed inside vehicles. With production methods evolving, the report alleges that one newly established factory was “located in the heart of a densely populated residential area within the city of Sweida, overseen by the National Guard, using residents as human shields against any potential air strikes”. The factory, it adds, “relied on local expertise that received advanced technical training from experts from the Lebanese 'Hezbollah' who specialised in assembling and preparing captagon pills before the fall of the [Assad] regime”. Jordanian intelligence assessments state that Sheikh Hikmat al-Hajari, the Druze religious leader who heads the National Guard, has deliberately built a "permissive environment" for traffickers in exchange for revenue, replicating the same model that sustained Assad's rule for years. Early last month, Jordanian F-16s launched a wave of air strikes targeting at least six locations inside the Syrian southern province. The operation, formally designated "Operation Jordanian Deterrence", hit what Amman described as "factories, facilities and warehouses used by trafficking groups as launch points for smuggling operations into Jordan". The operation marked the fifth cross-border strike conducted by Jordan since Assad's fall, and the third since the National Guard seized control of Sweida in July. Retired Jordanian Air Force Colonel Abdullah al-Sarhan described the operation to Al Jazeera as a "pre-emptive" measure, arguing that traffickers had increasingly adopted sophisticated methods to move narcotics across the border, including drones and other advanced technologies. Speaking to Al Jazeera, retired Major-General Mamoun Abu Nowar stated that the strikes were “a message to those within Sweida cooperating with Israel and to Israel itself: do not attempt any future projects on our borders. Jordan will not hesitate to strike these nests.” Men look at the debris following a Jordanian strike on reported drugs and weapons storage facilities in the village of Arman, in the southern Druze-majority province of Sweida, on 3 May 2026 (Shadi al-Dubaisi/AFP) A Jordanian government source told the outlet that the kingdom would no longer tolerate drug-production facilities operating near its border, while stressing that the strikes were conducted in coordination with Syrian authorities and aimed at protecting the security interests of both states. In January, the two countries agreed to establish a joint security committee to combat cross-border arms and drug smuggling, and both sides pledged enhanced coordination along their shared border. Amid escalating tensions, the Jordanian International Police Training Centre last month hosted a graduation ceremony for a police preparation and qualification course attended by 300 members of the Syrian Internal Security Forces. The training programme included modern police sciences, as well as practical training in physical fitness, self-defence and the use of various weapons. A source in the Syrian interior ministry stated that the Syrian police officers who underwent training courses in Jordan would begin working in the coming period in rural areas of Sweida province under Syrian government control, as part of efforts to enhance security. GPS-guided drug drops Traffickers have continually adapted their methods in an effort to evade border patrols. While smugglers initially experimented with quadcopter drones, the technology proved costly and capable of carrying only relatively small loads. In recent months, authorities have reported the increasing use of large helium-filled balloons fitted with GPS navigation systems and "timed remote-release mechanisms", enabling narcotics shipments to be carried across the border and dropped at designated locations. According to data collected by Charles Lister, a senior fellow and Syria director at the Middle East Institute, and published by the New Line Magazine, the Jordanian military has intercepted at least 46 million pills since July last year, most loaded onto GPS-guided helium balloons. On 14 May, Syrian authorities announced they had thwarted an attempt to smuggle 142,000 captagon pills into Jordan using the GPS-guided balloons equipped with remote-control release systems, highlighting the increasingly refined techniques employed by trafficking networks. Sacks of confiscated captagon pills at the judicial police headquarters in the town of Kafarshima, south of Lebanon's capital Beirut, on 27 July 2022 (Joseph Eid/AFP) A significant share of the captagon flowing through Sweida today arrives from Lebanon , where remnants of Assad's rule have found safe refuge alongside Hezbollah , the Iranian -backed group that had a longstanding alliance with the ousted Syrian president. The new Syrian authorities have taken a strong stance against Hezbollah-linked operations in the country, including arms and drug trafficking. The group has denied involvement in the captagon trade. Earlier in January, the Syrian authorities announced an operation carried out by the anti-narcotics unit in the city of Yabroud, southern Syria, around 20-25 km east of the Lebanon border, which resulted in the seizing of 226 balloons intended for drug transport, 106 kilograms of hashish, 650,000 captagon pills, 238 grams of crystal meth, 60 grams of marijuana and counterfeit bills amounting to $30,000. The shipment, originating in Lebanon, was reportedly bound for Syria before continuing to Jordan and then to Gulf countries. In the past six months, Syrian authorities seized nearly 33 million captagon pills arriving from Lebanon, a figure that accounts for 77 percent of all captagon seized by the government, according to Syria Weekly data. Growing anti-narcotics cooperation Cooperation between Damascus and Beirut has intensified significantly in recent months as both governments seek to restrain the flow of narcotics across the region. In April, Lebanese Interior Minister Ahmad al-Hajjar confirmed the dismantling of an international trafficking network that was allegedly preparing to smuggle 85 kilograms of narcotics to Kuwait , in an operation carried out in coordination between anti-narcotics agencies in Syria, Lebanon and Kuwait. Inside the drugs factory: How captagon is fuelling the war in Sudan Read More » Al-Hajjar stressed the importance of strengthening coordination among Arab security agencies and pledged continued efforts to pursue criminal networks operating across national borders. In April, Syria's state news agency Sana reported that the interior ministry had arrested one of Lebanon's most prominent wanted drug traffickers after he entered Syrian territory. According to the report, the suspect, who was wanted by the Lebanese judiciary on charges related to the trafficking of captagon and cannabis, was detained following coordination between Lebanon's Central Anti-Narcotics Office and Syria's Anti-Narcotics Directorate. On 19 March, he was handed over to the Lebanese authorities through the Masnaa border crossing. Syrian officials said the case reflected an expanding framework of security and judicial cooperation between the two countries aimed at disrupting drug trafficking networks operating across the Syria-Lebanon border. In addition to Jordan and Lebanon, in the past six months, Syria's interior ministry and General Intelligence Directorate have also conducted joint anti-narcotics operations with Iraq and Turkey . Yet as trafficking networks adapt to new realities on the ground, authorities face an increased difficulty in preventing the remnants of Assad's drug empire from taking root in areas where state authority remains weak. Syria after Assad News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:19 Update Date Override 0