Jordan on Thursday launched air strikes inside Syria against suspected warehouses and hideouts of Iranian-backed drug smugglers, Jordanian and regional intelligence sources said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The army has stepped up a campaign against drug dealers after protracted clashes last month with dozens of infiltrators from Syria linked to pro-Iranian militias, carrying large hauls who crossed its border with weapons and explosives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sources told Reuters jets bombed the suspected home of a leading drug dealer in the town of Shaab in Sweida province while the other strike hit warehouses near the village of Al-Ghariya.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both locations are in the province of Sweida near the Jordanian border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ryan Marouf, editor of Suwayda 24, a Syrian news website, who has tracked the drug war, said a plume of smoke was seen from the border area soon after the strikes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe first strike targeted a leading drug dealer linked to Iranian militias and the other raid bombed a farm where drugs are stored,\u201d Marouf said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jordanian officials, like their Western allies, say that Lebanon\u2019s Iran-backed Hezbollah group and other pro-Iranian militias who control much of southern Syria were behind a surge in drug and weapons smuggling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iran and Hezbollah say the allegations are part of Western plots against the country. Syria denies complicity with Iranian-backed militias linked to its army and security forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jordan has been promised more US military aid to improve security on the border, where Washington has given around $1 billion to establish border posts since the Syrian conflict began in 2011, Jordanian officials say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UN experts and US and European officials say the illicit drug trade finances a proliferation of pro-Iranian militias and pro-government paramilitary forces created by more than a decade of conflict in Syria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

War-torn Syria has become the region\u2019s main site for a multi-billion-dollar drug trade, with Jordan being a key transit route to the oil-rich Gulf states for a Syrian-made amphetamine known as captagon, Western anti-narcotics officials and Washington say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jordan on Thursday launched air strikes inside Syria against suspected warehouses and hideouts of Iranian-backed drug smugglers, Jordanian and regional intelligence sources said. The army has stepped up a campaign against drug dealers after protracted clashes last month with dozens of infiltrators from Syria linked to pro-Iranian militias, carrying large hauls who crossed its border with weapons and explosives. The sources told Reuters jets bombed the suspected home of a leading drug dealer in the town of Shaab in Sweida province while the other strike hit warehouses near the village of Al-Ghariya. Both locations are in the province of Sweida near the Jordanian border. Ryan Marouf, editor of Suwayda 24, a Syrian news website, who has tracked the drug war, said a plume of smoke was seen from the border area soon after the strikes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":87939,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[3504,195,9668],"class_list":["post-87938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-world","tag-drug-dealers","tag-iran","tag-jordan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87938"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87940,"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87938\/revisions\/87940"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metronews.ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}