Remnants of cannabis flowers crumbled by a farmer from the Bekaa in order to separate the seeds from other parts of the plant. (Credit: João Sousa/L’Orient Today)
Changes are happening in the Bekaa. Once a drug and smuggling kingdom, a paradise for bad boys where the state was often absent, this “far west” located on the borders of Lebanon and Syria, where lawlessness has long prevailed, is undergoing a profound transformation. This transformation, much like a poker game, is the result of a poor hand dealt to the two main players, who reshuffled its cards.First came the Syrian regime’s ousting, along with the dismantlement of the structures that had provided indirect protection to smuggling networks for years. More on Nouh Zeaiter From manhunt to judgment day: Nouh Zeaiter faces the courtroom Then followed the decline of Hezbollah’s influence in Lebanon, which created a vacuum in areas where it had acted as a patron, in the absence of a fully functioning state authority.It is in this...
Changes are happening in the Bekaa. Once a drug and smuggling kingdom, a paradise for bad boys where the state was often absent, this “far west” located on the borders of Lebanon and Syria, where lawlessness has long prevailed, is undergoing a profound transformation. This transformation, much like a poker game, is the result of a poor hand dealt to the two main players, who reshuffled its cards.First came the Syrian regime’s ousting, along with the dismantlement of the structures that had provided indirect protection to smuggling networks for years. More on Nouh Zeaiter From manhunt to judgment day: Nouh Zeaiter faces the courtroom Then followed the decline of Hezbollah’s influence in Lebanon, which created a vacuum in areas where it had acted as a patron, in the absence of a fully functioning state authority.It is in...
