close
close

The destruction of Hezbollah's drug empire will have fatal consequences for the group

In 1997, at the height of Hezbollah's tireless campaign to expel the IDF from Israel's security zone in southern Lebanon, I made an unusual proposal.

In addition to directly attacking the terrorists, I also made a statement The Jerusalem Post that Israel should attack one of its main sources of funding – drugs.

At the time, Hezbollah and its Syrian allies were regional leaders in heroin production. The poppy fields from which the opiates were extracted covered the Bekaa Valley and other fertile areas. Defoliate them, I argued, and deprive the terrorists of their oxygen.

My suggestion went unheeded by the Israeli security apparatus, and in May 2000 the last Israeli soldier left Lebanon.

Over the next 25 years, Hezbollah grew from a relatively small terrorist force into a massive terrorist army, one of the most formidable forces in the Middle East.

Greek authorities present confiscated weapons, money and Captagon amphetamine pills after breaking up a crime ring near Elefsina, southwest of Athens, Greece, March 6, 2017. (Source: REUTERS/MICHALIS KARAGIANNIS)

The 15,000 rockets and missiles Israel faced in the Second Lebanon War in 2006 rose to over 150,000.

Since invading southern Lebanon in September, the IDF has uncovered a vast network of attack tunnels, each generously equipped with weapons, designed to facilitate Hezbollah's planned conquest of the Galilee.

All this armaments, infrastructure and training cost billions of dollars. A large part of this sum was transferred from Iran, but a no less lucrative money-maker is – still – the drug trade.

Hezbollah's new focus: Captagon

However, the nature of the business has changed. While the Bekaa region still produces massive amounts of opium and cannabis, Hezbollah is now focusing on fenethylline, a synthetic amphetamine and psychostimulant best known by its brand name Captagon.

Captagon is illegal in most countries, manufactured in Syria, which accounts for 80% of the global market, and distributed by Hezbollah.

Stay up to date with the latest news!

Subscribe to the Jerusalem Post newsletter

Control of Captagon's supply routes through the Middle East to Jordan and Iraq, as well as its exports abroad through the port of Beirut, has enriched Hezbollah.

The drug's $5.7 billion in annual sales – equivalent to a quarter of Syria's GDP – accounts for 40% of Hezbollah's budget.

Joseph Braude, founder of the Center for Peace Communications, has documented Hezbollah's exploitation of Lebanon for drug and human trafficking, as well as the virtual enslavement of innocent Lebanese as mules. “Along with Iranian support,” he told Bari Weiss’ “Honestly” podcast. “Sex and drugs play a big role [Hezbollah] finance their operations and their war machine.”

However, Hezbollah's drug business covers much more than the Middle East. In collaboration with South and Central American cartels, it plays a prominent role in drug smuggling into the United States.

Yet Washington has reacted sluggishly, if at all.

Project Cassandra, launched by the DEA in 2008, investigated Hezbollah's collaboration with the cartels, but was halted by an Obama administration determined to reach a nuclear deal with Hezbollah's patron, Iran.

Recently, in December 2022, President Biden signed the Captagon Act, which mandates measures to disrupt Captagon trading.

Congress passed a bipartisan bill that would impose new sanctions on the drug's manufacturers and distributors. Whether these measures have impacted the Captagon market or dented Hezbollah's profits in any way remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, Israel is at war with Hezbollah and is seeking to destroy not only the terrorists' military and command centers, but also their financial centers.

On October 21, Israeli warplanes bombed the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Qard Al-Hassan financial association in Beirut and several of its branches in the Bekaa Valley.

Although the U.S. has been highly critical of Israel's airstrikes on the Lebanese capital, it has found it difficult to denounce the destruction of a sanctioned bank that, according to the Treasury Department, “illegally transfers funds through sham accounts and intermediaries, exposing Lebanese financial institutions to possible sanctions.” .”

From the Israeli perspective, the goal was clear, a senior Israeli military source told it Wall Street Journal. “The purpose of the attack is to disrupt Hezbollah’s ability to function both during and after the war, and to rebuild and rearm it.”

Achieve goals by bombing the drug industry

The same goal can be achieved, perhaps even more effectively, by bombing Hezbollah's drug industry. Oded Ailam, former head of Mossad's terrorism department, agreed, saying: “An attack on the organization's drug laboratories in the Bekaa Valley could harm its activities.”

My 1997 post ended with a quote from, of all people, the Wicked Witch of the West who cackled in “The Wizard of Oz”: “Poppies. Poppies will put them to sleep.” It’s time to put Lebanon’s poppies to sleep, I urged. Thirty-seven years later, Israel's destruction of Hezbollah's drug empire could not be more timely or less controversial.

The United States—and much of the world—will thank us.

The author, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States and former MK and Deputy Minister of Diplomacy in the Prime Minister's Office, is the founder of the Israel Advocacy Group and the author of Substack Clarity.



You may also like...