Drug trafficking from Syria into Jordan is turning into “organised” with smugglers stepping up operations and utilizing refined gear together with drones, Jordan’s military mentioned Thursday, warning of a shoot-to-kill coverage.
Because the starting of this 12 months, Jordan’s military has killed 30 smugglers and foiled makes an attempt to smuggle into the dominion from Syria 16 million Captagon tablets — greater than they seized in the entire of 2021 — the navy mentioned.
“Essentially the most harmful factor we’ve got seen just lately is the presence of armed teams alongside the traffickers,” Colonel Zaid Al Dabbas informed reporters throughout a tour of the border.
These teams, he mentioned, “have new ways, like these of organised crime” and use “refined autos… in addition to drones”.
One other senior officer, Colonel Mustafa Al-Hiyari, warned that “anybody who tries to… smuggle medicine to Jordan will die”, pointing his hand in the direction of the border space.
On January 27 the military mentioned it killed 27 traffickers in a conflict as they tried to enter the dominion from Syria.
It was the deadliest confrontation but within the military’s combat in opposition to smugglers. Three different alleged traffickers have been killed in separate operations this 12 months.
Some 160 teams of traffickers are working in southern Syrian, close to the border with Jordan, in keeping with Dabbas.
Hiyari informed reporters that enormous quantities of unlawful medicine have been seized for the reason that starting of the 12 months.
This included 17,348 packs of cannabis and greater than 16 million Captagon tablets — in comparison with 15.5 million tablets for all of 2021 and 1.4 million tablets in 2020.
Captagon is an amphetamine-type stimulant manufactured largely in Lebanon, though in all probability additionally in Iraq and Syria, and is well-liked throughout the area, significantly in Gulf Arab nations.
“Jordan is waging an undeclared warfare alongside the border in opposition to drug traffickers and those that again them up,” Hiyari mentioned.
Jordan, the officers mentioned, is working with Syrian authorities to stamp out trafficking alongside the border.
“We received a really optimistic response from the Syrian authorities… however on the bottom that doesn’t final for lengthy,” Hiyari mentioned.
“We’ve confirmed info that some Syrian checkpoints cooperated with some smugglers in some instances… some checkpoints affiliated with the Syrian military helped smugglers and supplied safety,” he added.
“However we can’t be sure that this was performed on directions from the Syrian military — maybe these are instances of corruption in these checkpoints,” Hiyari mentioned.
He additionally mentioned that it was not clear if the medicine have been produced and got here from Syria or “from some place else”.
In response to an EU-funded report by the Middle for Operational Evaluation and Analysis, “captagon exports from Syria reached a market worth of no less than $3.46 billion” in 2020.
