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Early on August 31, two airstrikes targeted a farm near the town of al-Ghariya in the southern countryside of Syria’s Suwayda.
Suwayda 24, a local news blog, said that columns of smoke were observed rising from the targeted farm in the aftermath of the airstrikes
A hangar housing three harvesters and an agricultural tractor was destroyed in the airstrikes. Several heads of cattle were also killed. However, workers who were staying in a nearby building at the time of the aerial attack survived with no injuries.
Fighter jets of the Royal Jordanian Air Force were spotted flying over the border line, which is located five kilometers away from al-Ghariya, just minutes before the airstrikes. This and the fact that the town is known as a hub for drug smugglers led to speculations that the airstrikes were carried out by Jordan.
In a phone call with Suwayda 24, Mansour Safadi, the owner of the targeted farm, denied that any drugs related activities were taking place on his property. The man assumed that the airstrikes might have been carried out based on faulty information. Locals in al-Ghariya supported Safadi’s claims.
Struck by a serious economic crisis and a destructive war, Syria is today one of the key drug production hubs in the Middle East. Jordan, on the other side, is the main smuggling route to the lucrative drug market of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.
Jordan has been growing frustrated with the activists of Syrian traffickers. The situation on the Jordanian-Syrian border was one of the main issues the Syrian foreign minister discussed with its counterpart from Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iraq during a meeting that was held in Amman on May 1, just a few days before Damascus was readmitted to the Arab League. An understanding to combat traffickers was reportedly reached.
A series of strikes destroyed an abandoned drug factory in the southeastern Syrian governorate of Daraa and killed a prominent trafficker in Suwayda on May 8. Back then, Reuters reported that the strikes were carried out by Jordan.
Later on August 1, the Syrian army and security forces had launched an operation against drug traffickers along the border with Jordan. The operation came a week after a meeting between the defense ministers and intelligence chiefs of Syria and Jordan that was held in Amman.
