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Jordan carried out rare airstrikes on southern Syria on May 8, hitting a drug factory and killing a drug kingpin, Reuters reported, citing local and intelligence sources.
One airstrike targeted an empty building said to be an abandoned drug factory near the town of Khrab al-Shahm in the western Daraa countryside.
Another airstrike targeted a house in the village of Shaab in the eastern countryside of the adjacent governorate of al-Suwayda, killing Marie al-Ramthan, an alleged Syrian drug kingpin responsible for smuggling to Jordan, along with his wife and six children.
Al-Ramthan has recruited hundreds of Bedouin traffickers who join the ranks of Iran-linked forces that hold sway in southern Syria, Jordanian and regional intelligence sources told Reuters. He was reportedly sentenced to death on several occasions in recent years in absentia by Jordanian courts for drug trafficking.
Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi declined to confirm that his country had carried out the airstrike when he was asked during a news conference.
“When we take any step to protect our national security or confront any threat we will announce it at the right time,” he said.
Just a few days earlier, the minister threatened to take military action inside Syria if Damascus would not rein in smuggling. The Iran-linked drug war posed a threat not only to Jordan’s national security but also to Gulf countries, Safadi said during an interview with CNN
The deadly airstrikes came just a day after Syria was readmitted into the Arab League with help from Jordan. Officials told Reuters that the airstrikes were a message to Damascus that it should not mistake Amman’s resolve on the drug issue.
Struck by a serious economic crisis and a destructive war, Syria is today one of the key drug production hubs in the Middle East. Jordan, on the other side, is the main smuggling route to the lucrative drug market of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.
Despite repeated accusations by the West and several Arab states, the Syrian government, Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah deny involvement in the drug trade.
The Jordanian airstrikes, which were apparently meant to pressure Damascus, led to much criticism against Amman, even from the Syrian opposition. The death of a woman and her six children was seen as unjustifiable. Still, there were no official condemnations from any side.
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