Saudi counter-narcotics authorities assist Iraq in thwarting smuggling of 7 million Captagon bills

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Updated 16 March 2025
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Saudi counter-narcotics authorities assist Iraq in thwarting smuggling of 7 million Captagon bills

  • Criminals concealed drugs within a shipment of children's toys and ironing boards
  • It is the first such seizure announced since the toppling in December of Syrian president Bashar Assad

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s counter-narcotics authorities assisted their Iraqi counterparts on Sunday to thwart an attempt to smuggle millions of toxic amphetamine pills.

Col. Talal bin Abdul Mohsen bin Shalhoub, the security spokesman of the Ministry of Interior, said Iraqi authorities seized 7 million amphetamine pills based on information supplied from the ministry and the General Directorate of Narcotics Control.

Criminals had concealed the drugs within a shipment of children’s toys and ironing boards, the Saudi News Agency reported.

Iraqi authorities cooperated positively, he added, and seized the narcotics shipment, affirming Riyadh and Baghdad’s commitment to countering drug smuggling and confronting criminal networks.

The drug shipment is the largest ever seized in Iraq. With assistance from Saudi Arabia, Iraqi authorities tracked and intercepted the shipment as it traveled from Syria, through Turkiye, and toward the Iraqi territory.

Western anti-narcotics officials say the addictive, amphetamine-type stimulant known as captagon has for years been mass-produced in Syria.

Captagon — a mix of amphetamines also known as the “poor man’s cocaine” — is one of the more popular recreational drugs among affluent youth in the Middle East.

It was the first such seizure announced since the toppling in December of Syrian president Bashar Assad, whose government was at the heart of the trade in areas he controlled, experts have said.

Captagon became Syria’s largest export during the country’s civil war that began in 2011.

Iraq in 2022 announced it had seized six million pills, and in 2024 the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNDOC) said the country had experienced a “dramatic increase” in both the trafficking and use of captagon in the previous five years.

“In 2023 alone, authorities (in Iraq) 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,” a UNDOC report said.

It said that between 2019 and 2023, about 82 percent of the captagon seized in the Middle East originated from Syria, followed by Lebanon at 17 percent.

The new authorities in Damascus have announced the destruction of around 100 million captagon pills but the trade persists, a diplomatic source who follows the issue said.

“Lower-ranking operators are showing resilience, adapting, and remaining in place despite political or security changes,” the source said.

“It is therefore not surprising to see trafficking continue, whether through the sale of existing stockpiles or the establishment of new production.”

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said that trafficking from Syria was ongoing and that there were still captagon factories operating in the country.

* With AFP

The Kingdom vs Captagon
Inside Saudi Arabia's war against the drug destroying lives across the Arab world

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PKK claims Iraq attacks on Kurdish security forces

Updated 8 sec ago
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PKK claims Iraq attacks on Kurdish security forces

The post would close a road between two regions “in an attempt to destroy and besiege our forces,” the PKK said
It is one of many posts that the peshmerga have started building in an area considered “strategic” to the group

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq: The outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) claimed on Thursday two attacks in northern Iraq that wounded five Kurdish security personnel earlier this week.
The attacks occurred on Monday and Tuesday, targeting peshmerga bases in Dohuk province in the northern autonomous Kurdistan region, which has seen repeated clashes between Turkish forces and the PKK.
The regional authorities, who have close ties with Ankara, said on Tuesday that two separate drone attacks targeted its security forces, blaming them on a “terrorist group.”
The PKK said in a statement that it launched “minor” attacks to avoid casualties in response to the Kurdistan security forces — the peshmerga — building a new post in the area.
The post would close a road between two regions “in an attempt to destroy and besiege our forces,” the PKK said.
It is one of many posts that the peshmerga have started building in an area considered “strategic” to the group, the PKK added.
Kamran Othman of the US-based Community Peacemakers Teams, which monitors Turkish operations in Iraqi Kurdistan, told AFP Tuesday that the peshmerga were establishing a new post in a “sensitive area” long marked by tensions between the PKK and Turkish forces.
Blacklisted as a “terrorist group” by Ankara, the European Union and the United States, the PKK has fought the Turkish state for most of the past four decades.
The group maintains rear bases in the mountains of northern Iraq, where Turkish forces have also long operated bases.
The drone attacks came weeks after the PKK announced a ceasefire with Turkiye in response to their jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan’s historic call to the group to dissolve and disarm.
Despite the ceasefire, skirmishes between the foes continue in several areas of northern Iraq.
The regional authorities said the attacks aimed to “obstruct the peace process and the stability of the region.”
The PKK said in their statement that they “don’t want to enter a war with any side.”

Police arrest 400 in Istanbul: lawyers group

Updated 01 May 2025
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Police arrest 400 in Istanbul: lawyers group

  • “The number of arrests that have been reported to us exceeds 400,” the Istanbul branch of the CHD lawyers group wrote on X
  • There was no immediate comment on the detentions from city authorities

ISTNABUL: Police arrested more than 400 people in Istanbul on Thursday, with parts of Turkiye’s biggest city paralyzed in a bid to prevent May Day demonstrations, a lawyers group said.
On Wednesday city authorities closed metro, bus and ferry services in the metropolis and arrested 100 people who were allegedly planning to protest in the city’s central Taksim Square, where demonstrations have been banned since 2013.
This year’s May Day comes as the government is embroiled in a showdown with the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CPH), following the detention of its presidential candidate Ekrem Imamoglu.
Imamoglu, who is Istanbul’s mayor, is the biggest political rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“The number of arrests that have been reported to us exceeds 400,” the Istanbul branch of the CHD lawyers group wrote on X on Thursday.
There was no immediate comment on the detentions from city authorities.
AFP journalists witnessed several dozen people arrested in neighborhoods on the European side of the city.
Several thousand people assembled in sanctioned protests called by labor unions on the Asian side of the city, according to local media and an AFP journalist.
On Wednesday, rights group Amnesty International urged Turkiye to lift the ban on demonstrations in Taksim.
“The restrictions on May Day celebrations in Taksim Square are based on entirely spurious security and public order grounds and... must be urgently lifted,” said Dinushika Dissanayake, an Amnesty’s specialist on Europe.
As happens every year, the square has been sealed off with metal barriers for several days, with a heavy police presence.


Turkiye stresses opposition to decentralization in Syria

Updated 01 May 2025
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Turkiye stresses opposition to decentralization in Syria

  • Ankara sees decentralization demands by Syria’s Kurds as a threat because of what it says are their cross-border links to Kurdish militants in Türkiye
  • “Turkiye does not accept any initiative that targets Syria’s territorial integrity,” a Turkish Foreign Ministry source said

ANKARA: Türkiye rejects any plans that undermine the central government in Syrian Arab Republic or threaten its sovereignty and territorial integrity, Turkish sources said, responding to demands from Kurds for Syria to adopt a decentralized system of government.
Türkiye backed rebels against former President Bashar Assad for years and is seen as the closest foreign ally of Syria’s new Islamist leaders, vowing to help them rebuild and stabilize a country devastated by 14 years of war.
Ankara sees decentralization demands by Syria’s Kurds as a threat because of what it says are their cross-border links to Kurdish militants in Türkiye, while it looks to end a decades-old conflict with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militia.
Rival Syrian Kurdish parties, including the dominant Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the northeast, agreed at a meeting on Saturday on a common political vision for the country’s Kurdish minority and decentralization, a call rejected by Syria’s leadership.
Turkish sources elaborated on comments by President Tayyip Erdogan, who said on Wednesday that decentralization demands in Syria were “nothing more than a raw dream.”
“Turkiye does not accept any initiative that targets Syria’s territorial integrity, that will damage its sovereignty, or that allows weapons to be carried by others not in the Syrian central authority,” a Turkish Foreign Ministry source said.
Türkiye, a NATO member, views the US-backed SDF as a terrorist organization.
Ankara welcomed a March deal between the SDF and Damascus to merge Kurdish-led governing bodies and security forces with the central government, but said it must also ensure the dismantling of the YPG militia spearheading the SDF, and of the SDF’s chain of command.

PROVIDING ‘SPACE’
The source said Türkiye had provided “the necessary space” for Damascus to address Türkiye’s concerns over Kurdish militants in Syria. Ankara has previously warned of military action if its concerns are not alleviated.
A Turkish defense ministry source said on Wednesday that demands for autonomy could harm Syria’s sovereignty and regional stability.
“We cannot consent to the disintegration of Syria’s territorial integrity and the deterioration of its unitary structure under any guise,” the source told a briefing in Ankara.
“We are against autonomous region and/or decentralized rhetoric or activities, just as is the new Syrian administration.”
Late on Wednesday, Turkish Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Oncu Keceli said all regional countries must contribute to Syria’s security and stability, calling on Israel to halt “its air strikes that harm the unity and integrity of Syria.”
Israel has been mounting air strikes inside Syria, which Türkiye has called an unacceptable provocation to harm Syria’s unity in the post-Assad era. Ankara has been a fierce critic of Israel since it launched the Gaza war.
Ankara also wants all Western sanctions imposed on Syria to be fully lifted and for US troops stationed in the northeast to withdraw.


Paramilitary shelling hits Sudan’s presidential palace: army source

Updated 01 May 2025
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Paramilitary shelling hits Sudan’s presidential palace: army source

  • RSF used “long-range artillery” launched from their holdout position in Al-Salha
  • They targeted the army’s General Command headquarters in central Khartoum

KHARTOUM: Sudan’s presidential palace in central Khartoum was shelled by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces on Thursday, a military source said, the second such attack on the capital in a week.
The RSF, at war with the army for two years, used “long-range artillery” launched from their holdout position in Al-Salha, located south of Khartoum’s twin city of Omdurman, the source told AFP on condition of anonymity.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
On Saturday, the RSF targeted the army’s General Command headquarters in central Khartoum, also using long-range artillery fire, according to a military source.
The attacks come weeks after the army pushed the RSF out of central Khartoum, which the paramilitary had swept through early in the war.
In a major military offensive in March, army forces regained control of the presidential palace, the airport and other strategic areas in the capital.
But the RSF still clings to its last pockets of control in southern and western Omdurman.
Since April 2023, the war in Sudan has killed tens of thousands, uprooted 13 million and created the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises.
The conflict has effectively divided the country in two with the army holding the center, east and north while the RSF controls nearly all of Darfur and parts of the south.


Tunisia leader’s opponents, supporters stage rival rallies in sharp political split

Updated 01 May 2025
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Tunisia leader’s opponents, supporters stage rival rallies in sharp political split

  • The anti-Saied demonstration reflects growing concerns among human rights groups that the birthplace of the Arab Spring is sliding toward one-man rule

TUNIS: Opponents of Tunisian President Kais Saied protested on the streets of Tunis on Thursday, accusing him of using the judiciary and police to suppress critics, while his supporters held a counter-rally, highlighting a deepening political divide.
The anti-Saied demonstration — the second opposition protest in a week — reflects growing concerns among human rights groups that the birthplace of the Arab Spring is sliding toward one-man rule.
Demonstrators on the capital’s main thoroughfare chanted slogans such as “Saied go away, you are dictator” and “The people want the fall of the regime,” a slogan reminiscent of the 2011 uprising that toppled former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
On the same street, Habib Bourguiba Avenue, Saied’s supporters rallied in his defense, chanting, “No to foreign interference” and “The people want Saied again.”
Riot police deployed in large numbers to separate the groups. No clashes were reported.
The demonstrations follow a months-long government crackdown on Saied’s critics, including the detention last week of prominent lawyer Ahmed Souab, a fierce critic of the president.
On Thursday the anti-Saeid protesters marched from the headquarters of the Administrative Court, where Souab had served as a judge before retiring and becoming a lawyer widely respected by all political parties.
They then joined other protesters in a square that is home to the headquarters of the powerful UGTT union, before heading toward Habib Bourguiba Avenue.
Souab’s arrest followed prison sentences handed down last week to opposition leaders on conspiracy charges, drawing criticism from France, Germany, and the United Nations.
Saied rejected the criticisms, calling it a blatant interference in Tunisia’s sovereignty.
The opposition accuses Saied of undermining the democracy won in the 2011 revolution, since he seized extra powers in 2021 when he shut down the elected parliament and moved to rule by decree before assuming authority over the judiciary.
They described his move as a coup, while Saied says it was legal and necessary to end chaos and rampant corruption.
The leaders of most political parties in Tunisia are in prison, including Abir Moussi, leader of the Free Constitutional Party, and Rached Ghannouchi, the head of Ennahda — two of Saied’s most prominent opponents.
The government says there is democracy in Tunisia. Saied says he will not be a dictator, but insists that what he calls a corrupt elite must be held accountable.