BITTER PILL

Bashar al-Assad’s Cronies Have Turned War-Torn Syria Into a Narcostate, NYT Reports

Friends and family members of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad have created an illegal captagon drug haven in the Mediterranean country.

As if Syrians didn’t have enough trouble after decades of war, they are now a narcostate, with the army overseeing a multibillion-dollar drug op, according to The New York Times. The industry, which has surpassed the country’s legal exports, is allegedly run by President Bashar al-Assad’s own family members and wealthy friends. The Times says that the country’s Fourth Armored Division, run by Assad’s younger brother, is in charge of producing, packaging and smuggling mostly captagon pills, which contain an addictive amphetamine favored in the Middle East. “The idea of going to the Syrian government to ask about cooperation is just absurd,” Joel Rayburn, the U.S. special envoy for Syria during the Trump administration, told the Times. “It is literally the Syrian government that is exporting the drugs. It is not like they are looking the other way while drug cartels do their thing. They are the drug cartel.”