A member of the Syrian Directorate for Combating Narcotics examines drugs from Lebanon, seized near Damascus, on July 27, 2026. (Credit: Sana)
BEIRUT — The Syrian Directorate for Combating Narcotics intercepted an attempt to smuggle drugs from Lebanon on Monday, the official Syrian news agency Sana reported.
The operation took place in the Nabk region, not far from Damascus, and led to the seizure of 850,000 narcotic pills, Sana said, without specifying the type of drug seized. Syrian authorities also arrested a man identified by the initials K. M.
Earlier in July, Syria announced it had thwarted an attempt to bring a large shipment of drugs from Lebanon to the farms of al-Nabk following monitoring and surveillance operations.
Since the fall of Bashar Assad’s regime on Dec. 8, 2024, Damascus has regularly announced seizures of captagon and smuggled weapons at the Lebanese border. Captagon had become Syria’s main export during the civil war that began in 2011, serving as a major source of funding for the former regime, which had turned the country into a narco-state. The new Syrian authorities accuse Hezbollah, a former Assad ally, of being involved in this cross-border trafficking. The United States also accuses Hezbollah of smuggling Captagon.
