new authorities claim to have burned a million captagon pills

The new Syrian authorities set fire this Wednesday, December 23, to significant quantities of narcotics, including a million captagon pills, an amphetamine produced on an industrial scale under Bashar al-Assad, two members of the forces reported to AFP. security.

In Damascus, in the courtyard of former security offices of the old power, the forces of the new authorities sprayed fuel then set fire to stocks of cannabis, boxes of Tramadol and around fifty small bags containing captagon pills , according to an AFP videographer.

Narco-State

“We found a large quantity of captagon, around a million pills”told AFP a member of these forces, introducing himself by his first name Osama, his face hooded, dressed in the khaki uniform of “Public Security Administration”.

On December 8, a coalition of rebels led by the radical Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) entered Damascus and announced the overthrow of power, after a dazzling offensive which allowed it to seize a large part of the country in eleven days.

Abandoned by his Iranian and Russian allies, Bashar al-Assad, who ruled Syria with an iron fist for 24 years, fled to Moscow, marking the end of more than 50 years of unchallenged rule by the Assad clan.

Bashar al-Assad's rule was known for producing captagon, an amphetamine derivative of a drug believed to treat narcolepsy or attention deficit disorder, transforming his country into a narco-state and flooding markets in the Middle East. , a real scourge spilling into neighboring Iraq or into Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia. Several Syrian officials have been hit by American sanctions, suspected by Washington of being involved in this drug trafficking.

“Protect Syrian society”

In recent days, in hangars or military bases, the coalition of Islamist armed groups has discovered small bags containing captagon pills by the hundreds. Very often, the drugs are then set on fire by fighters from HTS, the leader of the Islamist groups.

On Wednesday, the destruction of drugs took place in the former “security sector” formerly cordoned off from Damascus, in the Kafar Soussé district. “The security forces of the new Syrian government discovered a drug warehouse during inspections of the security area”another member of these forces, introducing himself under the name Hamza, told AFP.

Destruction of stocks – “alcohol, Indian hemp, captagon pills and hashish packets” – is done for “protect Syrian society” et “cut off smuggling routes operated by Assad family businesses”he said, referring to the industrial scale drug trafficking of the old regime. “This is not the first initiative of its kind – security services found other warehouses (…) and drug manufacturing sites and destroyed them” he said.

An AFP investigation revealed that Captagon had made Syria a narco-state with an illegal industry worth more than ten billion dollars (or approximately 9.6 billion euros).

The conflict in Syria, sparked in 2011 by the brutal repression of pro-democracy protests, has left more than half a million dead and displaced millions.