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Will CENTCOM play a bigger role in countering the Middle East Captagon trade?

A newly released US State Department strategy asserts that joint defence programmes in the region were key to success in curbing the Captagon drug trade

This picture taken on July 27, 2022 shows a view of sacks of confiscated captagon pills at the judicial police headquaters in the town of Kafarshima south of Lebanon's capital Beirut.
AFP
This picture taken on July 27, 2022 shows a view of sacks of confiscated captagon pills at the judicial police headquaters in the town of Kafarshima south of Lebanon's capital Beirut.

Will CENTCOM play a bigger role in countering the Middle East Captagon trade?

Caroline Rose
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This past week, the US Department of State released its Written Strategy to Disrupt and Dismantle Narcotics Production and Trafficking and Affiliated Networks Linked to the Regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

The strategy was outlined in accordance with an amendment that passed this December in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, which stipulated the US establish an interagency strategy targeting the Syrian al-Assad regime’s sponsorship, profit, and leverage over the illicit drug trade, “Captagon,” and present this strategy to the US Congress after 180 days.

Eduardo Ramon

Read more: Does al-Assad hold the keys to dismantling the Captagon trade?

The written strategy debuted US interagency efforts to combat the Captagon trade along four lines of effort: diplomatic and intelligence assistance, sanctions and financial tools, bolstering partner capacity for interdiction, and accountability through diplomatic fora.

The strategy was a comprehensive response that acknowledged the growing Captagon trade, targeting production and trafficking networks both inside and beyond Syria while incorporating existing law enforcement, demand reduction, and forensic tools into the strategy.

The written strategy asserted that bolstered capacity and border security amongst regional partners through defence programmes in the region were key to success in curbing the Captagon drug trade and participation of US adversarial actors like the Syrian regime and Iran-aligned militant groups.

However, broader messaging over the US’ counter-Captagon strategy has strongly asserted that this effort is out of the US military’s lane, largely in line with other US agencies. This disparity begs the question of how the US Department of Defense and its broader efforts in the region have—and will—play out as the US builds on its counter-Captagon strategy.

The written strategy asserted that bolstered capacity and border security amongst regional partners through defence programmes in the region were key to success in curbing the Captagon drug trade and participation of US adversarial actors like the Syrian regime and Iran-aligned militant groups.

Anti-IS operations

The US-led Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR) efforts in Iraq and Syria have been strictly tied to the enduring defeat of the Islamic State (IS) through the curbing of the organisation's leadership structure, licit and illicit financing, terrorist operations, and global network.

Because the dismantling of IS financing has been a core element of the OIR mission, US military personnel and coalition partners have participated in occasional seizures of narcotics like Captagon from IS-held areas.

In May 2018, one of the first OIR interactions with the Captagon trade occurred after one of the coalition partners, Jaysh Maghawir al-Thawra (MaT), seized 300,000 pills estimated to value over $1.4 million, believed to be in the possession of IS fighters.

In an announcement from the Department of Defense, it was reported that the cache of drugs was destroyed by the coalition forces. The following year in 2019, US Central Command (CENTCOM) reported that a MaT combat outpost again intercepted over 850,000 Captagon pills, believed to be worth $3.5 million, that were transported by truck headed to the Rukban camp on October 23. 

And in November 2022, OIR again showcased coalition partner Captagon seizures, when they helped oversee the incineration of 60,000 Captagon pills, smuggled into the 55-km deconfliction zone (DCZ) after it was intercepted by the Syrian Free Army, with the drugs' origin unknown.

This time, the CJTF-OIR Twitter page retweeted a Syrian Free Army video showing Coalition partners and US military personnel incinerating the seized pills in a fire pit from plastic packages that branded the Lexus logo—a typical packaging method often used by traffickers operating out of regime-held territory in Syria.

CJTF-OIR has not been alone in seeking to bolster regional partners' interdiction capacity and shine a light on counter-Captagon measures.

Because the dismantling of IS financing has been a core element of the OIR mission, US military personnel and coalition partners have participated in occasional seizures of narcotics like Captagon from IS-held areas.

US-Levant joint task force

The US' Combined Special Operations Joint Task Force - Levant (SOJTF-Levant) has also spotlighted partner seizures as a key feature of its advise-and-assist role.

Since November 2021, the SOJTF-Levant task force was broadened from its counter-terrorist mandate against IS, expanding its authority and focus on bolstering coalition and partner force operational capacity, expanding engagement with Egyptian, Lebanese, and Jordanian armed forces, and collaborating on common interest and security challenges.

AFP
Officers of the Directorate of Narcotics Control of Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry sort through tablets of captagon (Fenethylline) seized during a special operation, Jeddah on March 1, 2022.

With its rotational commando elements and a broadened mission set that values partner force stability, counter-narcotics efforts —particularly Captagon arrests and interdictions — have become a key focus of SOJTF-Levant regional interests.

Since 2020, the SOJTF-Levant has announced Captagon seizures, arrests, and laboratory raids conducted by the MaT in Syria, the Lebanese army in the Bekaa Valley, the Free Syrian Army in Syria, the Jordanian army along its border with Syria, and the Asayish in northeast Syria.

One announcement in particular of an Asayish Captagon seizure in April noted that bolstered interdiction capacity was part of efforts to actively secure the region and civilian populations "from threats and maintaining safety and stability."

This linkage of counter-narcotics and regional stabilisation has been echoed by top US military leadership in the Middle East in recent years.

On June 21, one of the US top military brass in US Central Command, Southwest Asia, Commander of the Ninth Air Force and the Combined Forces Air Component Commander Lieutenant General Alexus Grykewich took part in an online press briefing to discuss how Air Forces Central was perceiving emerging threats related to the mission against IS and efforts for regional security.

Since 2020, the SOJTF-Levant has announced Captagon seizures, arrests, and laboratory raids conducted by the MaT in Syria, the Lebanese army in the Bekaa Valley, the Free Syrian Army in Syria, the Jordanian army along its border with Syria, and the Asayish in northeast Syria.

Drug trade a threat to regional security

However, one question revealed an emerging concern — and a potential dimension — of the US advise-and-assist mission in the region.

In answering whether the US would launch aerial strikes on drug production sites used by malign actors in the region, such as the Syrian regime and Iran-aligned armed groups, Grykewich spoke at length on how the US mission perceives these emerging illicit trades as a threat to stability.

AFP
A handout picture released by the Iraqi border authority on March 11, 2023, shows captagon pills seized by the Iraqis at the al-Qaim border crossing between Syria and Iraq.

Grykewich noted that the flow of the illicit drug Captagon out of Syria should be a challenge "all ought to be focused on" and urged a concerted effort between the US and partner countries' border security and defensive measures against illicit trades.

While Grenkewich asserted that counter-Captagon efforts were not a military mission by nature, asserting other US agencies were working primarily to help halt the drug's flow, his comments indicated a growing understanding and value within CENTCOM of the role counter-narcotics efforts could play as a feature of the US' advise-and-assist role.

Grykewich noted that the flow of the illicit drug Captagon out of Syria should be a challenge "all ought to be focused on" and urged a concerted effort between the US and partner countries' border security and defensive measures against illicit trades

Moving forward

As the US builds on its introduced strategy and the Captagon trade continues to expand into new transit routes in Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, and beyond the Middle East, US military personnel staged across the region are bound to encounter the drug trade — along with its criminal networks — more frequently.

US law enforcement agencies will continue to play the most prominent role in the US' introduced counter-Captagon strategy, managing informational exchange, demand and supply-reduction strategies with partner countries, and identifying innovative solutions to disrupt the trade and involvement from malign actors like the Syrian regime and Iran-aligned armed groups.

Yet the proximity of US personnel and cross-border trafficking nodes in partner countries creates an urgency for the Department of Defense and CENTCOM to determine how exactly counter-narcotics—if at all—plays into ongoing US advice, assist, and enable activities in the region.

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