Syria: At Least 10 Civilians Killed in Suspected Jordan Strikes

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Facts

  • Local media in Syria's southern province of Sweida and activists reported on Thursday that at least 10 civilians, including two children and five women, were killed at dawn that day in airstrikes some have attributed to Jordan.1
  • The air raids reportedly targeted the houses of two men identified as Omar Talab and Turki al-Halabi, in Orman and Malah, respectively, destroying them and three surrounding buildings.2
  • This marks the third time this year Jordanian aircraft are alleged to have violated Syrian airspace in its war against drug dealers — three people were killed in two separate strikes in Shaab and Orman on Jan. 8, while Jordan announced on Jan. 6 that its army had killed five alleged armed smugglers as they sought to cross from Syria.3
  • Over the past years, Jordan has been used as a route to smuggle hundreds of millions of Captagon amphetamine pills out of Syria, mainly to oil-rich Arab Gulf countries where there is demand for the highly addictive pills among people with physically demanding jobs who use them to keep alert.4
  • Syrian-Jordanian relations have become strained amid a drug smuggling surge on their border despite a boost in security measures, with Amman claiming that Damascus has taken the issue lightly and demanding further coordination to address the drug trafficking problem.5
  • Reports suggest that the Fourth Armored Division of the Syrian Army has overseen drug smuggling operations in Syria along with Lebanon's Iran-aligned armed group Hezbollah. Last year, the US Treasury Dept. sanctioned six people for their role in the Captagon industry, including relatives to Syria's Pres. Bashar al-Assad.6

Sources: 1Reuters, 2North Press Agency, 3BBC News, 4Associated Press, 5The Cradle and 6Al Jazeera.

Narratives

  • Narrative A, as provided by The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. This airstrike cannot be justified as the targeting of drug smugglers — it needs to be called what it is, a massacre. Innocent women and children were callously killed by a careless Jordanian raid that once again violated Syrian territory. If Jordan genuinely wants to tackle the drug problem on the border, it must focus on drug smugglers and their backers instead of indiscriminately striking residential areas.
  • Narrative B, as provided by Roya News. First and foremost, there's no evidence that Jordan is responsible for these deadly airstrikes in Syria. Those who have attributed them to Amman (mostly Syrian outlets) have jumped to such a conclusion based solely on the fact that the kingdom has legitimately intensified its campaign against drug smugglers to prevent them from infiltrating across the border.

Predictions