Whoa, if true
Official Syrian Conflict Thread
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
felt off to me as well but it ultimately changes nothing
now on the other hand if you think Assad didn't imprison, torture, and execute people this is your smoking gun
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
sounds like a wishlist more than anything tangible lol
evil marxists and deporting "Iraqi" Kurds
Interesting read I came across
www.yahoo.com
The Assad regime in Syria came toppling down in lightning speed after rebel forces led a days-long offensive across the country and captured the capital, Damascus, on Sunday, with President Bashar Assad ultimately fleeing to Russia.
How did it happen so quickly?
Some Syrian analysts, as well as the Biden administration, have pointed to Assad's chief backers -- Iran, Russia and Hezbollah -- as having been "weakened and distracted" in recent months. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in September said the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was a "historic turning point."
Other close watchers of Syria have also pointed to another key factor: a tiny white pill with a pair of interlocking half-moons on one side -- a synthetic and amphetamine that is wildly popular in the Middle East known as Captagon.
Experts say that the drug trade stemming from Syria, the world's largest Captagon supplier, helped hasten Assad's downfall because neighboring countries, wanting to tamp down on the flood of pills, abandoned him.
The pill is the synthetic stimulant fenethylline or fenetylline, known by the brand name Captagon, that overtook the Middle East as a popular drug. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime's World Drug Report last year, "the main departing area for 'captagon' shipments" continues to be Syria and Lebanon, and, "[a]ssuming that all amphetamine seizures reported in the subregion are of 'captagon,' seizures doubled from 2020, reaching a record high of 86 tons in 2021."
Caroline Rose, who studies the Captagon trade at the Washington-based think tank New Lines Institute, told ABC News the drug has a "licit" history and is incorrectly perceived as not being dangerous, and therefore doesn't garner the stigma of party drugs like cocaine or ecstasy. It's also popular in Muslim countries where alcohol is banned by the Quran, she said.
"It makes you feel invincible," Rose said. "It staves [off] hunger and helps keep you up late at night, and you have taxi drivers, university students, poor people in bread lines, wealthy people who want to lose weight -- you have fighters who are using it because it keeps you up late, it gives you energy and you can survive on one MRE [meals ready to eat] a day."
The world's leader in Captagon trade has been Syria, generating an estimated $10 billion for the country -- and an estimated $2.4 billion a year directly for the Assad regime, according to a 2023 study conducted by the Observatory of Political and Economic Networks, a nonprofit that conducts research on organized crime and corruption in Syria.
One person who has had a very close eye on the Captagon trade from Syria in recent years is Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.), one of dozens of lawmakers who co-sponsored the bipartisan Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019, which proposed to place heavy sanctions on Assad and his closest allies. The bill ultimately passed as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2020.
Hill subsequently introduced the Captagon Act in 2021, which he told the publication The New Arab in 2022 was designed to "disrupt and dismantle the Assad regime's production and trafficking of the lethal narcotic."
"In my view, the Assad regime turning to narcotics production for its main source of revenue was a sign that the world treating Assad like a pariah was working," Hill told ABC News. "It is clear after last week's events that the rot in Assad's military and finances ran deep."
According to Rose, the booming Captagon trade was a "zombie economy" born out of the stiff sanctions imposed on Syria by the United States and Europe -- and it was also lining the pockets of the Assad regime.
"If there ever was a perfect case for a narco-state, I think it was Syria, because you had the state security and political apparatus defending Captagon production and putting out a public narrative that there wasn't Captagon but then using the president's brother, all its security apparatus and the Fourth Armored Division all involved in carrying out the trade," Rose said.
What is Captagon, the synthetic stimulant that earned billions for the Assad regime in Syria?
The Assad regime in Syria came toppling down in lightning speed after rebel forces led a days-long offensive across the country and captured the capital, Damascus, on Sunday, with President Bashar Assad ultimately fleeing to Russia. Other close watchers of Syria have also pointed to another key...
What is Captagon, the synthetic stimulant that earned billions for the Assad regime in Syria?
The Assad regime in Syria came toppling down in lightning speed after rebel forces led a days-long offensive across the country and captured the capital, Damascus, on Sunday, with President Bashar Assad ultimately fleeing to Russia.
How did it happen so quickly?
Some Syrian analysts, as well as the Biden administration, have pointed to Assad's chief backers -- Iran, Russia and Hezbollah -- as having been "weakened and distracted" in recent months. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in September said the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was a "historic turning point."
Other close watchers of Syria have also pointed to another key factor: a tiny white pill with a pair of interlocking half-moons on one side -- a synthetic and amphetamine that is wildly popular in the Middle East known as Captagon.
Experts say that the drug trade stemming from Syria, the world's largest Captagon supplier, helped hasten Assad's downfall because neighboring countries, wanting to tamp down on the flood of pills, abandoned him.
The pill is the synthetic stimulant fenethylline or fenetylline, known by the brand name Captagon, that overtook the Middle East as a popular drug. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime's World Drug Report last year, "the main departing area for 'captagon' shipments" continues to be Syria and Lebanon, and, "[a]ssuming that all amphetamine seizures reported in the subregion are of 'captagon,' seizures doubled from 2020, reaching a record high of 86 tons in 2021."
Caroline Rose, who studies the Captagon trade at the Washington-based think tank New Lines Institute, told ABC News the drug has a "licit" history and is incorrectly perceived as not being dangerous, and therefore doesn't garner the stigma of party drugs like cocaine or ecstasy. It's also popular in Muslim countries where alcohol is banned by the Quran, she said.
"It makes you feel invincible," Rose said. "It staves [off] hunger and helps keep you up late at night, and you have taxi drivers, university students, poor people in bread lines, wealthy people who want to lose weight -- you have fighters who are using it because it keeps you up late, it gives you energy and you can survive on one MRE [meals ready to eat] a day."
The world's leader in Captagon trade has been Syria, generating an estimated $10 billion for the country -- and an estimated $2.4 billion a year directly for the Assad regime, according to a 2023 study conducted by the Observatory of Political and Economic Networks, a nonprofit that conducts research on organized crime and corruption in Syria.
One person who has had a very close eye on the Captagon trade from Syria in recent years is Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.), one of dozens of lawmakers who co-sponsored the bipartisan Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019, which proposed to place heavy sanctions on Assad and his closest allies. The bill ultimately passed as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2020.
Hill subsequently introduced the Captagon Act in 2021, which he told the publication The New Arab in 2022 was designed to "disrupt and dismantle the Assad regime's production and trafficking of the lethal narcotic."
"In my view, the Assad regime turning to narcotics production for its main source of revenue was a sign that the world treating Assad like a pariah was working," Hill told ABC News. "It is clear after last week's events that the rot in Assad's military and finances ran deep."
According to Rose, the booming Captagon trade was a "zombie economy" born out of the stiff sanctions imposed on Syria by the United States and Europe -- and it was also lining the pockets of the Assad regime.
"If there ever was a perfect case for a narco-state, I think it was Syria, because you had the state security and political apparatus defending Captagon production and putting out a public narrative that there wasn't Captagon but then using the president's brother, all its security apparatus and the Fourth Armored Division all involved in carrying out the trade," Rose said.
You're an idiot. You think some of us have the same mindset as you. I have already said there are no good guys in this conflict.I want to say its quite astonishing that we have these MAGA Zionist psychopaths in here (@88m3 @voiture @ADevilYouKhow ) slurping ISIS and AL Qaeda like there's no tomorrow . . . but it actually fits as they are consistent in support of terrorism and paedophilia
The rebels might start turning their guns at each other soon.
Assad gassed his own people the evidence is overwhelming but I bet you deny it. We don't know what the future holds...only one thing is for sure though. Israel runs the middle east.
And me MAGA? You must be new here. Check my post history on how I feel about Trump
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
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88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Suheil Hamawi has returned home to northern Lebanon after spending 33 years in a string of Syrian prisons, including the infamous Sadnaya. Hundreds of Lebanese were detained by the Assad regime during Syria’s decades-long occupation of the country, and many are still missing. “I feel like I can breathe again,” Hamawi said, staring out from his balcony at the ocean.
@FAH1223 @thatrapsfan
@FAH1223 @thatrapsfan
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Credit...Ivor Prickett for The New York Times
Blood stains on Dec. 11 on the steps of a square in Aleppo, where 15 people were killed in one of the final airstrikes carried out by the Assad regime before its collapse.
Image
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Credit...Rami Al Sayed/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Displaced Syrian Kurds fleeing from the outskirts of Aleppo with their belongings on Dec. 2 after rebel fighters seized the area.