BAGHDAD: Iraqi authorities seized record quantities of the potent stimulant captagon last year, at an estimated value of up to $144 million, with the country increasingly a critical drug conduit, a UN report said Monday.
“Iraq has been experiencing a dramatic surge in drug trafficking and consumption for the past five years,” according to a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report.
In 2023 alone, authorities “seized a record-high 24 million captagon tablets,” the equivalent of over 4.1 tons, with an estimated “retail value” of between $84 million and $144 million, it said.
“Iraq appears to be at the nexus of regional trafficking routes for both methamphetamine and captagon,” UNODC said, adding that it is “becoming a critical juncture in the complex trafficking dynamics observed in the Near and Middle East region.”
Captagon seizures in Iraq “reportedly tripled between 2022 and 2023, and overall amounts seized in 2023 are 34 times higher than in 2019.”
An amphetamine derived from a once-legal treatment for narcolepsy and attention disorder, captagon today is trafficked through several Middle Eastern countries, with Syria the main country of origin.
Authorities in conflict-scarred Iraq regularly announce large seizures of captagon, much of it moved across the porous 600-kilometer (370-mile) border with war-torn Syria.
According to UNODC, 82 percent of the captagon seized in the region between 2019 and 2023 originated in Syria, followed by neighboring Lebanon, at 17 percent.
Iraq faces an explosion in domestic drug use, with the repeated crises that have gripped the conflict-ridden country of 43 million people driving up usage.
During an anti-drug conference attended by regional officials, Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohamed Shia Al-Sudani called for regional cooperation.
“Coordinating and cooperating to pursue and dismantle drug gangs will serve regional and international security,” he said, adding that “Iraq is open to all cooperation” to fight “cross-border crime.”
“We will support any effort aiming to eliminate drug hubs, manufacturing stations, and cutting off their supply chains.”
UN warns Iraq becoming major regional drug conduit
https://arab.news/6uz2k
UN warns Iraq becoming major regional drug conduit
- “Iraq appears to be at the nexus of regional trafficking routes for both methamphetamine and captagon,” UNODC said
- Authorities in Iraq regularly announce large seizures of captagon, much of it moved across the border with Syria
Helicopter crashes in Libya during medical evacuation, killing 3
- The Matan Al-Sarra air base lies in an area under the control of Libya’s Benghazi-based eastern administration led by military strongman Khalifa Haftar, but authorities in the east did not comment on the crash
TRIPOLI: A helicopter has crashed in southeastern Libya, killing a medic and two crew members carrying out a medical evacuation, state media said Tuesday.
Libyan news agency LANA said the chopper went down overnight near an air base in the Kufra region about 60 kilometers north of the border between Libya and Chad.
The aircraft was attempting to evacuate a soldier who had been involved in a road accident in the desert, LANA said.
The cause of the crash was not immediately known and it was unclear what happened to the injured soldier.
Libyan media reports said two foreign nationals were among those on board who were killed, but this was not confirmed by authorities.
The Matan Al-Sarra air base lies in an area under the control of Libya’s Benghazi-based eastern administration led by military strongman Khalifa Haftar, but authorities in the east did not comment on the crash.
Libya remains split between the eastern administration and a UN-backed government in the west led by Prime Minister Abdelhamid Dbeibah. The LANA news agency is under the control of western authorities.
Libya has struggled to recover from chaos that erupted following a 2011 Arab Spring uprising that toppled and killed longtime ruler Muammar Qaddafi.
