LONDON: More than a year after Syrian rebels swept longtime ruler Bashar Assad from power, the Captagon empire that underpinned his regime has survived his fall. It has mutated into trafficking networks that stretch across a landscape of porous borders and fragmented authority.
Determined to dismantle that infrastructure, Jordan and Syria’s interim government, led by President Ahmad Al-Sharaa, have intensified efforts against Captagon trafficking, targeting networks that have adapted to the power vacuum left by Assad’s fall.
In early May, Jordan’s air force carried out what it called a “deterrence operation” targeting sites “belonging to arms and drug traffickers along the kingdom’s northern border.”
The army said on May 3 it had “identified, based on intelligence and operational information, the locations of factories, laboratories, and warehouses used by these groups as launchpads for operations into Jordanian territory, which were subsequently targeted and destroyed.”
“Smuggling has evolved quite significantly over the past year,” Benjamin Feve, senior research analyst at Karam Shaar Advisory, told Arab News. (Reuters/File)
