Did Syria give consent for drug dealer air strike near Jordan?

Outcome of drug war on Syria-Jordan border linked to political dynamics

Basalt stones and rocks from ancient volcanoes cover the Black Desert plateau, which stretches from Syria to Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Alamy

In the early stages of the US-led war on ISIS in Syria, US officers would inform the Syrian military when coalition warplanes would be crossing into the country to strike at the group.

“The Syrian regime would turn off its air defences,” says a former European envoy who witnessed communication exchanges between the two sides at a command centre in Amman between 2014 to 2015.

The military channel was open, although the US, Jordan and other countries flying planes in the coalition supported rebel groups fighting President Bashar Al Assad.

With his survival still at stake in that period, Mr Assad had an interest in showing that he could still be useful for Washington, which baulked at striking his troops directly.

There has since been a rapprochement between the Syrian president and Jordan, and with other Arab countries, with crucial encouragement from Moscow.

The changes culminated in the readmission of Damascus to the Arab League last month, after a Chinese-brokered detente between Saudi Arabia and Iran, Mr Assad’s second most powerful ally.

So when a reported Jordanian air strike killed a Syrian drug dealer in southern Syria six weeks ago, speculation rose that it was conducted in co-ordination with the Syrian military.

The May 8 attack near the border with Jordan was the first use of air power against a player in the multi-billion-dollar-a-year narcotics trade centred in southern Syria.

The drugs, which consist mainly of the amphetamine pills known as Captagon, flow to Jordan and then to Saudi Arabia.

Captagon has emerged as the most lucrative component of a war economy that developed in Syria since the country plunged into civil war in late 2011, after the uprising against the ruling Assad family became militarised. In that year, the Arab League suspended Syria's membership.

A western diplomat in Amman said “the regime appears to have given its consent” for the air strike, pointing out absence of any reports of it in Syrian official media. The diplomat emphasised a lack of operational details to make a definitive judgment about the issue.

This narrative helps Mr Al Assad project himself as a partner in an escalating drug war on the Syrian-Jordanian border, and distance himself from Iran. Jordan has accused the Syrian army and pro-Iranian militias of fuelling the drugs trade.

The illicit trade boomed in 2018. In that year, the Syrian military regained control of most of the southern part of the country from the western and Arab-backed rebel groups.

A Jordanian official downplayed suggestions that there was co-ordination with Damascus on the air strike.

“Fighter jets can fire at targets from fairly long distances,” he said, suggesting that the strike may have been carried out without the plane entering Syria.

The target, Murei Al Ramthan, was a local figure who acted as a link between narcotics manufacturers in Syria and Lebanon and the export market, says Syrian researcher Ryan Maarouf.

Ramthan was not a producer, nor an important member of military or militia units linked to the cartels, said Mr Maarouf, who works at Suwayda24, an organisation of citizen journalists in southern Syria.

At least five of Al Ramthan’s children were reportedly killed in the attack.

Over the past several weeks, fear of more air strikes drove some of his peers to evacuate border areas with Jordan to the interior. On their way, they freely crossed Syrian army and intelligence roadblocks, says Mr Maarouf.

“Trust between them and the regime has been shaken,” he said. “One day the regime could sacrifice them, but it continues to provide them with cover.”

'Summer holiday' for smugglers

Gauging whether the air strike have curbed drug flows is difficult because the attack coincided with summer, when mostly clear weather makes smuggling easier to spot by Jordanian border guards, he said.

“Summer is an annual holiday for smugglers,” Mr Maarouf said. “They will come back in the [autumn]. May be they will change smuggling routes and take more precautions.”

Co-ordinates of the strike on Google Earth show the outline of a building where Al Ramthan reportedly lived in the village of Shaab, 20km north of the border with Jordan.

The village is part of the Black Desert, a volcanic plateau that has historically contained main smuggling routes. The co-ordinates were provided by a member of the Syrian opposition, who monitors developments in southern Syria.

Saud Al Sharafat. Directer of the Shorufat Center for Globalization and Terrorism Studies in Amman, said even if Damascus co-operated with Jordan in the air strike, the kingdom remains dissatisfied with a lack of “a clear and frank commitment” from Mr Assad to halt the drug flows.

But Jordan, he said, acquiesced to a Saudi-led drive to rehabilitate Syria to the Arab League, as Iran wanted, without securing such a commitment.

Unlike other Arab countries that have been improving ties with Damascus, Jordan depends on aid from the US, which has opposed the Arab rapprochement with Mr Assad.

The US has also paid hundreds of millions of dollars to bolster Jordan’s defences with Syria, and has troops in Syria near its south-eastern border with Jordan, which could give Washington influence over Jordanian policies towards Syria.

A western military official, who was recently in Amman, told The National that “regardless of the development of ties between Syria and Saudi Arabia and others, Jordan will continue to be sending messages to the Syrian regime that smuggling must be stopped, or certain groups on the ground will be attacked”.