Jordan army clashes with Syrian drug smugglers

Several Jordanian soldiers were wounded in a clashes with drug smugglers who tried to enter the kingdom from Syria yesterday morning, a military official said.

The clashes followed a rise in attempts by drug smugglers to “cross the border by force, through the targeting of border guards” over the past two days, the official said.

Attempts to smuggle narcotics into northern Jordan from areas under the control of the Syrian military and allied militias supported by Iran increase in winter, when the weather provides more cover.

The clashes yesterday took place on Jordanian territory near the Syrian border and led to “thwarting the smuggling of large quantities of drugs and automatic and missile [type] weapons” into the kingdom, the military official said.

Captagon makes up the core of the drug smuggling business in the Levant.

Jordanian officials accuse pro-Iran militias and the Syrian military of overseeing the border narcotics trade. Both deny the allegations.

Last week, a day after drug smugglers from Syria killed a Jordanian soldier, Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amirabdollahian at a meeting in Geneva that the kingdom would “take all necessary steps” to protect its national security.

Jordan’s border with Syria has become the main conduit for the illegal trade since the Syrian military regained the area from rebels in 2018.

This was a major factor in Jordan’s drive for a regional rapprochement with Syria’s President Bashar Al Assad in the past two years.

The kingdom’s efforts appear to have cooled in the second half of this year, as officials in Amman said that the drug flows remained a security threat.