Iraqi and Lebanese intelligence agencies have coordinated to discover and destroy one of Lebanon’s largest drug factories making the highly addictive amphetamine Captagon, Iraq’s Ministry of Interior says.
The announcement late on Monday showcased rare security operation between the two countries and comes a month after the Lebanese army issued a statement about the discovery of a factory with large amounts of drugs in Yammoune village in the eastern Bekaa Valley.
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Iraq’s Interior Ministry said the Lebanese operation in Yammoune in mid-July came after Iraqi authorities gave Beirut information about the factory.
A senior Lebanese security official on Tuesday said it was not clear why Iraqi authorities made the announcement on Monday, adding that Lebanon’s security agencies are always in contact with Arab and international security agencies.
Arab states have been intensifying efforts to battle the massive drug trade.
The vast majority of the world’s Captagon is produced in neighbouring Syria with some production in Lebanon.
Western governments estimated that Captagon generated billions of dollars in revenue for ousted longtime Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, his family, associates and allies. The former government in Damascus denied the accusations.
But in the immediate days after al-Assad’s fall in December, opposition fighters, who took control of the capital, Damascus, uncovered large stashes of Captagon, a stimulant that has long been mass-produced in the country and became almost synonymous with the nation’s former leadership.
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Ahmed al-Sharaa, who led the rebels who forced al-Assad out of the country and has since become interim Syrian president, accused the former regime of turning Syria into “the world’s leading source of Captagon”. He promised to crack down on Captagon manufacturing and trade.
In February, the interior ministers of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Iraq held talks in Amman on ways to combat the illegal drug trade and agreed to set up a joint telecommunications cell to exchange information.
Smugglers have used Jordan as a corridor to smuggle Captagon pills out of Syria, mainly to oil-rich Arab Gulf states.
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