Syria and Jordan have teamed up to crush the remnants of the Assad regime’s drug empire.

At dawn on May 3, 2026, fighter jets of the Royal Jordanian Air Force (RJAF) struck multiple targets across Syria’s southern Suwayda province. The targets were not military bases, terrorist training camps, or Iranian missile depots. They were drug-smuggling hubs, weapons warehouses, and facilities linked to criminal networks that have spent years flooding Jordan and the wider Arab world with Captagon and other narcotics. 

The operation was not an isolated incident. It was the latest chapter in a years-long shadow war that Jordan has been forced to fight along its northern frontier against the drug cartels, smugglers, militias, and criminal networks that have transformed southern Syria into one of the most dangerous narcotics corridors in the world.

The strikes reflected a simple reality: Jordan has had enough.

For decades, Jordan has been Washington’s most reliable partner in the Middle East. It hosts US troops, facilitates regional diplomacy, maintains peace with Israel, and serves as a pillar of stability in one of the world’s most volatile neighborhoods. Yet today, Jordan faces a growing national security threat that receives only a fraction of the attention devoted to Gaza, Iran, Lebanon, or the Red Sea: a sophisticated narcotics war emanating from southern Syria.

For Washington, this is not simply a Jordanian problem. The same criminal networks are threatening America’s closest Arab ally, weakening Syria’s stabilization efforts, and creating conditions that could fuel broader regional instability.

The collapse of the Assad regime in December 2024 removed one of the principal architects of Syria’s transformation into a narco-state. But while the Bashar al-Assad dictatorship is gone, the criminal infrastructure he helped create remains alive and dangerous. Southern Syria, particularly the province of Suwayda, continues to serve as a hub for narcotics trafficking networks that threaten Jordanian security, Gulf stability, and the prospects for a successful Syrian recovery. The challenge facing Jordan today is no longer merely a border security issue. It is a regional security crisis with direct implications for US interests, demanding greater American attention and support before it grows into a far more costly problem.

Over the course of the Syrian Civil War, Captagon evolved from a relatively obscure amphetamine into one of the Middle East’s most lucrative illicit commodities. The drug has been linked to addiction, mental health disorders, violent behavior, and rising criminal activity, imposing high social and economic costs on countries across the Middle East, particularly among younger populations.

As international sanctions tightened and Syria’s economy collapsed, the Assad regime increasingly relied upon drug production and trafficking networks for revenue. Numerous investigations have linked elements of the Syrian state, including military and intelligence institutions, to industrial-scale Captagon production that generates billions of dollars annually, with distribution stretching from the Mediterranean to the Arabian Gulf.

Jordan quickly became a principal transit route for traffickers exploiting the 375-kilometer (225-mile) border. By 2022, Jordanian authorities reported seizing more than 16 million Captagon pills in just the first two months of the year. During the first four months of 2026, Jordanian armed forces and security agencies seized over 9 million Captagon pills. Security forces increasingly encountered heavily armed smuggling groups, forcing Amman to adopt more aggressive rules of engagement.

Faced with an unprecedented threat, Jordan abandoned a purely defensive posture. Beginning in May 2023, the RJAF launched a series of cross-border strikes targeting drug kingpins, Captagon factories, weapons warehouses, and trafficking hubs in southern Syria. Additional operations followed throughout August and December of 2023, January 2024, December 2025, and most recently in May 2026, reflecting Jordan’s growing willingness to use military force against narcotics networks operating beyond its borders.

Although the fall of Assad significantly disrupted Syria’s industrial-scale Captagon apparatus, it did not eliminate it. Localized criminal organizations survived and adapted. Suwayda in particular has emerged as one of the most significant remaining centers of trafficking activity due to fragmented governance, difficult terrain, and the limited reach of Damascus.

This presents a difficult challenge for Syria’s new government under President Ahmed al-Sharaa. Damascus has demonstrated a willingness to confront trafficking networks and dismantle production facilities. Syrian authorities have announced major narcotics seizures, shut down Captagon laboratories, and increased cooperation with neighboring countries. Joint Jordanian-Syrian operations in April 2026 led to the seizure of 5.5 million Captagon pills at the Jaber border crossing.

Jordan has pursued a dual-track strategy combining military pressure with diplomatic engagement. While Jordanian aircraft continue targeting trafficking infrastructure, Amman has simultaneously invested in rebuilding security cooperation with Damascus, recognizing that no amount of airpower can permanently solve a problem rooted in governance failures across southern Syria. Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad, Jordan has emerged as one of the new Syrian government’s closest regional partners. In January 2025, the two countries established a joint security committee to combat drug and weapons smuggling, with Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi declaring, “Our security is one, we will coordinate together to combat these mutual challenges.”

That cooperation has only deepened. During a high-level visit to Amman in July 2025, Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani and senior Syrian officials reaffirmed their commitment to expanding security, economic, and political coordination with Jordan. The message from both capitals was unmistakable: Syria’s recovery and Jordan’s security are inseparable. In a subsequent trilateral Syrian-Jordanian-American framework, the three countries jointly affirmed that “Syria’s stability, security, and prosperity are a cornerstone of regional stability.”

Jordan has consistently backed the government of President Ahmed al-Sharaa in its efforts to restore state authority across the country, including in southern Syria. Jordan’s strategy has increasingly paired military pressure with high-level diplomacy. On April 12, 2026, Foreign Minister al-Shaibani arrived in Amman, leading a ministerial delegation for the second session of the Jordan-Syria Higher Coordination Council, a body created after Safadi’s April 17, 2025, visit to Damascus and formalized by a memorandum on May 20, 2025. 

The visit signaled that Amman is not betting on airstrikes alone, but on rebuilding institutional cooperation with Damascus. As Safadi wrote after the meeting, Jordan and Syria are working from the premise that “Syria’s success is a success for Jordan and the region,” and that cooperation between the two governments is essential to confronting shared threats, stabilizing the border, and restoring state authority in southern Syria.

Jordan’s counter-narcotics campaign is further complicated by the increasingly prominent Israeli role in southern Syria. Following the fall of Bashar al-Assad, Israel expanded its political, financial, and military backing for Druze factions in Suwayda, particularly those aligned with Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, as part of a broader strategy to limit the authority of President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government in Damascus.

In recent months, Suwayda has evolved into Syria’s principal remaining narcotics hub, where former Assad-era traffickers, organized crime networks, and armed factions continue to operate with relative impunity. Israeli protection of Suwayda’s de facto autonomous order has created a permissive environment in which drug trafficking networks can survive despite Damascus’ nationwide crackdown on Captagon production and smuggling.

As Damascus has moved aggressively against Captagon laboratories and trafficking networks across much of the country, its ability to impose similar measures in Suwayda has remained limited. The result is a dangerous paradox: Israel’s efforts to weaken and constrain the authority of the Syrian government in the south have simultaneously complicated efforts to dismantle the criminal networks that continue to use the province as a major hub for narcotics smuggling. 

The United States has a direct interest in helping Jordan defeat the narcotics networks operating from southern Syria. For decades, Washington has invested heavily in Jordan because the kingdom remains one of America’s most reliable and strategically important partners in the Middle East. To strengthen Jordan’s capabilities, the United States should expand funding and technical support for Jordan’s Shaheen drone program, enhancing border surveillance and interdiction efforts. Washington should also provide additional intelligence-sharing, training, and security assistance focused on counter-smuggling operations. Such support would strengthen Jordan’s security, reinforce regional stability, and advance long-term American strategic interests.

Jordan’s war against narcotics trafficking is not merely Jordan’s war. It is a battle against transnational criminal organizations that undermine regional stability, fuel corruption, finance armed groups, and threaten American partners across the Middle East. Assad may be gone, but the criminal ecosystem he helped create remains. Helping Jordan defeat it is one of the smartest and most cost-effective investments Washington can make in the region’s security.

About the Author: Abdullah Hayek

Abdullah Hayek is a senior contributor with Young Voices and an independent Middle East analyst and consultant based in Washington, DC. He previously specialized in the political, economic, and military affairs of the Levant, Iraq, and Arabian Gulf regions at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Follow him on X: @ahayek99.

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