2023-08-07 13:07:11
It is a drug that partygoers are snapping up in Saudi Arabia and that we are starting to see arriving by the tons in European ports: captagon. A kind of amphetamine produced exclusively in Syria, under the protective wing of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
Thanks to the captagon, billions of dollars are pouring into Syria, despite the enormous international sanctions linked to the war. Trafficking in this synthetic drug also allows the Syrian regime to weigh in on the negotiations for its return to the diplomatic scene, recorded last May within the Arab League.
Guest of the program Tout un monde Monday, Jean-Pierre Filiu, historian specializing in the Middle East, explained that the Assad clan was here directly at the maneuver. “On a world scale, Bashar al-Assad is the big boss of captagon trafficking, with his brother, who is general of the presidential guard and commander of the 4th division, the only somewhat operational unit of the army of ‘Assad”, he explains.
Asking Bashar al-Assad to curb captagon trafficking will not change anything.
Jean-Pierre Filiu
“One of the essential missions of this army is to protect the production of captagon and to escort convoys of traffickers to the outside,” he adds.
A system of “arsonist fireman”
Author of the book “astounding Middle East – a history of drugs, power and society” published by Seuil, Jean-Pierre Filiu explains that there is a well-known system of “arsonist firefighters” in Syria with captagon. .
“Father Assad (Hafez al-Assad, Syrian president from 1970 to 2000, editor’s note) did it cynically with terrorism. He fed it and then everyone came to Damascus to ask him to limit it (…) It’s the same with the captagon. Bashar feeds the traffic and forces everyone and in particular his Arab peers to come and discuss with him the possible means of curbing… this same traffic”, he underlines.
Bashar starts fires and waits to be asked to put them out
Jean-Pierre Filiu
A system which, according to Jean-Pierre Filiu, is nothing but a trap set by the Syrian regime. “Asking Assad Sr. to curb terrorism has never prevented Syria from being a major hotbed for the expansion of terrorism. Asking Bashar al-Assad to curb captagon trafficking will not change anything. He will never do it, because it is on the contrary by continuing to produce the captagon that he will have at his mercy the people who today believe they are negotiating with him and obtaining concessions”, he analyzes.
For one who is a professor at Science Po Paris, this is how the Assad family has always functioned. “Bashar lights fires and waits for someone to come and ask him to put them out (…) with a degree of cynicism, violence and lack of scruples that is always surprising”.
Riyadh’s outstretched hand
In this context, Saudi Arabia’s efforts to reintegrate Damascus into Middle Eastern diplomacy are surprising.
“Saudi Arabia is the main market. The urban middle class who cannot afford alcohol, which is still illegal, finds these extremely addictive little amphetamine pills a means of entertainment. So we have a solvent and virtually unquenchable market. What is striking, however, is that Mohammed Bin Salman, the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia, gave up on the fact that al-Assad was the main drug dealer in his country , inviting him to the last Arab summit”, the expert is surprised.
On the border, Jordan, for example, had a much more direct approach, since it bombed southern Syria on the eve of the Arab League meeting, eliminating Maraiî al-Ramthan, who was called “the Escobar” from the captagon.
“Feeling the pressure on its border, Jordan did not wait for Bashar to get rid of it or hand it over. It knows that absolutely no credit should be given to such commitments on the part of the Syrian dictatorship” , concludes Jean-Pierre Filiu.
Interview by Céline Tzaud
Adaptation web: Tristan Hertig
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