A draft bill in the US Congress to confront drug trade in Syria
Two Congressmen in the US Congress submitted a draft bill in which they asked the US administration to “develop an interagency strategy to disrupt and dismantle narcotics production and trafficking and affiliated networks linked to Assad regime in Syria.”
Republican Congressman French Hill and Democrat Brendan Boyle said in a statement that “The US government must do all it can to disrupt the industrial level of drug production currently taking place in Syria,”
Hill and Boyle said in a joint statement “Since 2018, narcotic production and trafficking in Syria has turned Syria into a narco-state to fund Assad’s crimes against humanity.
The statement indicated that it is important to stop this trafficking and the source of illicit finance, explaining that the Assad regime will continue to drive the ongoing conflict if the process fails to stop it, provide a lifeline to extremist groups, and permit America’s enemies such as China, Russia and Iran to strengthen their engagement there, which poses an ever-larger threat to Israel and other partners in the region.
“In recent years, the lucrative and illicit Captagon trade has enabled the Assad regime to commit atrocities against the Syrian people by allowing it to undermine the impact of international sanctions,” Representative Brendan Boyle said.
He stressed that “It is imperative that the US takes a leading role in thwarting narcotics production in Syria so we can continue to pursue a political settlement and permanent resolution to the conflict, as outlined in UNSCR 2254.”
The American “The National Interest” website had published a report on the 17th of last November about the acceleration of the Captagon trade in the Middle East, and the report talked about the extent to which America and its allies lack a coordinating mechanism or a joint strategy to manage the prevention of the Captagon trade in light of the limited efforts of the Anti-Captagon department drugs and intelligence sharing between regional countries.
