Jordan: Crackdown on Syrian drugs, weapons depends on deals

Jordan's Air Force is increasingly striking targets in Syria linked to drug and weapons trafficking.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based war monitor, at least nine people were killed by the strikes in recent days. 

"The situation has escalated to a concerning level to Amman officials, as smugglers recently began moving weapons and explosives across the border, increasing the security threat in Jordan exponentially," a Syria expert at the International Crisis Group told DW.

So far, Syria has limited its reaction to condemning Jordan's airstrikes. A recent statement from the Syrian Foreign and Expatriates Ministry said, "Such strikes at Syrian territories can't be justified," the state-run news agency Sana reported.

The statement, however, also emphasized that Syria aims to contain the situation "within its keenness not to cause tension between the two countries."

Timing and pressure

For years, Syrian amphetamine drugs, such as Captagon pills, a brand name for fenethylline, used to be produced and trafficked to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, as these drugs are popular among the local party crowds and blue-collar workers. 

Also, amphetamine pills are less taboo than alcohol and much cheaper. 

However, Saudi Arabia has been putting pressure on Jordan to curb drug trafficking from Syria.

"If they fail, Saudi Arabia threatens to limit cross-border traffic to Jordan, which could have negative economic consequences for Amman," Edmund Ratka, head of the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation Office Jordan, told DW. 

Meanwhile, Jordan is also increasingly worried about turning from a mere transit country into a consumer market for drugs, Chrissie Steenkamp, associate professor at UK's Oxford Brookes University, told DW. 

A spike in trafficked weapons to Jordan is certainly also seen critically in light of the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and Jordan's Palestinian population. 

Officially, though, Syria says it has stepped up efforts to curb trafficking as this aspect was part and parcel of Syria's return to the Arab League.

In May 2023, the group of 22 countries readmitted Syrian President Bashar Assad after they had suspended Syria in 2011 as a consequence of the crackdown on the local population amid the still ongoing civil war. 

"Jordan was instrumental in facilitating Syria's return to the Arab League in May 2023," Steenkamp told DW. However, "diplomatic attempts to address the trafficking of Captagon, in particular, have not really paid off."

Captagon's rise in the Middle East

Ratka said he regards Jordan's current dual strategy — cooperation with the Assad regime and military confrontation with smuggler networks — as contradictory since parts of the Syrian regime are involved in the success of the narco-state.

In March 2023, the United States imposed sanctions on two of Assad's cousins, Samer Kamal Al Assad and Wassem Badi Al Assad, over trafficking Captagon amphetamine pills.

One month later, the European Union put sanctions on the same two cousins and 10 other people and entities.

"The trade in amphetamine has become a regime-led business model, enriching the inner circle of the regime and providing it with revenue that contributes to its ability to maintain its policies of repression against the civilian population," the EU Council wrote in a statement.

Given the illegal nature of the business, there are no official figures detailing how many amphetamine pills are produced in Syria.

However, seizures indicate the volume.

According to the Online World Drug Report 2023 by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, seizures of amphetamines in the Middle East have more than doubled from around 42 tons in 2020 to about 89 tons in 2021.

An investigation by the French news agency AFP in November 2022 also concluded that even with a low average price of $5 (€4.60) per tablet, and only four out of five shipments getting through, Captagon is at least a $10-billion industry. 

Success through collaboration

In addition to the government's role, several other actors make it challenging to tackle drug production and curb trafficking. 

After some 13 years of war, Syria is a fractured country, with opposition-held areas in the country's northeast and northwest, and Russia and Iran as political influencers in the capital, Damascus, and the country's south.

"These strikes, especially if they continue, are likely to reduce drug trafficking in the short term, but drugs and weapons will continue to flow unless Jordan reaches an agreement with the Syrian regime and its ally Russia," the International Crisis Group analyst told DW.

Since February 2022, when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia's presence in Syria's south near the border with Jordan has been reduced. This has allowed Iran-backed militias, who use smuggling as a source of income, to gain influence in the region.

"All of this has given rise to criminal transnational networks that are outside the control of the Syrian state or Russia," Ratka said.

In turn, the International Crisis Group analyst added that Jordan's success in curbing drug and weapons smuggling might have to be linked to collaborating with these local proxies as well.

However, this comes close to a worst-case scenario for Syria, he said.

"The main concern for the Syrian regime during the recent escalation is the prospect of Jordan successfully establishing communication channels with local communities in the south, an area that despite being under regime control, has a long history of opposition," the researcher said. 

Meanwhile, this very development seems to be happening.  

In the past weeks, the "Rijal al-Karama" movement — the largest military faction in Syria's Sweida province near the border with Jordan — expressed its willingness to coordinate with the Jordanian army to combat smuggling across the border. Also, the head of opposition forces in the Tanf border area, Farid al Qasim, said that they have begun coordination efforts with the Jordanian authorities, the International Crisis Group expert told DW.  

Edited by: Sean M. Sinico