Jordanian air raids to disrupt drug flows prompt row with Syria

Drug war at border escalated last month despite Arab rapprochement with Assad

Jordan has vowed to continue its efforts to curb drug smuggling from southern Syria after authorities in Damascus condemned air strikes by the kingdom on border areas seen as a launch pad for the flow of narcotics.

A statement by the Jordanian Foreign Ministry late on Tuesday said the kingdom’s national security was under threat and it would “continue to confront this danger and anyone standing behind it”.

Efforts to limit drug flows have been part of a rapprochement by Amman with President Bashar Al Assad, which began three years ago. It was enhanced by the reinstatement of Damascus to the Arab League in May.

Soon afterwards, a Jordanian air raid reportedly killed a drug dealer in southern Syria who was wanted by authorities in Amman. Several of his children were also killed in the attack, according to the Syrian Suwayda24 network of citizen journalists.

Several more Jordanian air strikes have since hit the area, causing mainly civilian casualties, Suwayda24 has reported.

The drug war escalated last month after hundreds of smugglers and militants transporting narcotics and weapons tried to overrun the kingdom’s border defences.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry statement on Tuesday said “Syria deeply regrets Jordanian Air Force strikes on … Syrian territory.

“There is no justification for such military operations,” the Syrian statement added, in what was the first official mention by the authorities in Damascus of the raids. The Jordanian government has neither confirmed nor denied that they took place.

At least two Jordanian air strikes have been reported on drug-smuggling regions of southern Syria since last month. Suwayda24 said such attacks had killed at least 13 civilians, including women and children.

The raids have focused on border areas in the mostly Druze governorate of Suweida. Southern Syria is mostly controlled by regular forces loyal to Mr Al Assad, as well as pro-Iranian militias.

Mr Al Assad was largely ostracised in the region in response to the violent suppression by his security forces of pro-democracy demonstrations that broke out in the southern governorate of Deraa in 2011, the last of the Arab uprisings.

Regime troops and irregular forces loyal to the President moved to areas close to the border with Jordan after a deal in 2018 between Russia, the US and Israel to hand over the area from anti-Assad rebels to the authorities.

The agreement was part of an alignment of zones of control in Syria after the Russian intervention in 2015 that tilted the balance of the civil war in favour of Mr Al Assad.

Since then, Syria’s border with Jordan has become a popular route for drug trafficking, particularly the amphetamine known as Captagon. The kingdom is both a consumer market and a transit point – mostly to Saudi Arabia – for the drugs.