Communities and local armed groups in Syria’s southern Suwayda and Daraa provinces are taking the fight against drug traffickers and smugglers into their own hands. With Damascus and Hezbollah profiting from the trade, they face an uphill battle.
In Syria’s southern Suwayda province, suspected Jordanian airstrikes hunt drug traffickers and kill civilians. Regime-linked gangs operate with impunity and smugglers ferry drugs over the border. Local armed groups fight back. How did we get here?
Escalating Jordanian military operations along—and across—its northern border with Syria signal a retreat from Amman’s “soft diplomacy” policy towards Damascus, accompanied by a growing sense of Iranian efforts to spread chaos within the country’s territory.
