Baladi News – (Private)
Observers of the Syrian case notice that cultivating, producing, and trading drugs as well as all related businesses thrive wherever Iran enters and stabilizes.
Iran exploited its golden circumstances after the fall of Iraq. It used its influence and militias to build trafficking roads of drugs through Iraq, Syria, and towards the Arab Gulf, Europe and Africa.
After 2011, the issue became more urgent for Iran because it was greatly involved in war. In the past, trafficking of drugs to the targeted countries and selling them at cheap prices had been a means to facilitate the destruction of facilities. However, such trafficking has become a critical source of funds for the armament of its fighters in Syria.
Iran used the "great experience" of its Iranian and Afghan militants, especially the Hazara known for poppy and cannabis cultivation for the production of various narcotic substances.
It has also turned many of the agricultural lands surrounding the camps of the Afghans to areas of drug cultivation, and entrusted its militants to take care of them, considering them as part of their financial rewards and a way to finance their battles in Syria.
However, it is not the end of the story. Iran uses the drugs' weapon in the liberated areas to recruit networks of agents. Initially, these agents are provided with some drugs to trade. Then, they are involved in other missions such as spying, implanting explosive devices, and carrying out assassinations and kidnaps. Whenever Assad's regime-affiliated agents were discovered in the liberated areas, it was found that they had strong ties with drug-trafficking networks sponsored and managed by Iran in both the liberated and the regime areas. These networks aim at creating agents and penetrating and destroying the society. In this way, Iran is working on the prevention of any stabilization in the liberated areas in order to thwart any liberation experience that would threaten the Iranian scheme, of which drugs are a fundamental basis that no one dares to mention.