“The Lebanese army is in control of the security situation in Baalbek-Hermel, and is continuing its path in establishing stability that the region has not witnessed in years, and is taking its measures in accordance with a clear agenda and strategy entitled: dismantling the “factories of death” and arresting merchants and promoters, and preventing tampering with the security of the region and the emergence of armed forces and the problems that lead to crimes.
The engines of the Lebanese army’s vehicles have not stopped working in the northern Bekaa Valley for two years, a restless movement on the main roads and within the neighborhoods and streets. Security deployment, patrols and checkpoints of the Intelligence Directorate, and weekly raids in various towns and regions of the Bekaa, aiming to pursue the wanted persons and arrest drug dealers, and dismantle the factories that produce toxins that kill the Lebanese youth whose addiction rate has increased during the recent period, and pressure to dismember those factories that are a source of grain Captagon was exported to the Arab Gulf, and it would have been a reason for severing Lebanon’s relations with its Arab surroundings had it not been for the move of the state and the security services to detect the shipments before they left Lebanon, and the role of the army in striking the heart of their origin.
During the last ten years, especially in light of the Syrian war, the drug trade constituted one of the most important sources of income for many, and it was widely circulated, to the extent that some areas began to be branded with what they produce, and each dealer had his own name inscribed on a Captagon pill, indicating the good quality he produces. Eastern Qalamoun in the Syrian interior, extending over the Lebanese interior to the Qusayr countryside, constituted one of the most prominent strongholds of Captagon and drug factories, whose ownership is shared by Lebanese and Syrians with Syrian security protection. War (ISIS and Al-Nusra) in the trade of death, buying and selling.
And with the return of stability to the Syrian regions and the end of the war, and the return of people to their towns and homes, which were previously used as manufacturing factories, these factories were moved by their Lebanese owners to their towns and villages and resumed their activity two years ago alongside those that existed previously. Security to areas far from residential gatherings. While smuggling operations continued abroad, whether from Syria or Lebanon, and a large number of shipments were confiscated and some of them reached their destination, the Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabia, began their war on drugs, as large quantities were seized from Lebanon and Syria, whether directly or through third countries. .
And while the Saudi-Syrian rapprochement began and a new page was opened after a rupture that lasted more than ten years, and as the titles of this agreement are still unclear, the features and foundations of the measures taken by the Fourth Division in the Syrian army about a month ago appeared in Homs and the Qusayr countryside bordering Lebanon. It worked to destroy all the drug manufacturing factories, pursue the wanted Lebanese and Syrians who run these factories, and prevent the entry of the wanted Lebanese, whose borders were previously open for them to enter and leave whenever they wanted.
In this context, sources following up on “Nidaa Al-Watan” indicate that the most important goals of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are to stop the trade and export of drugs to the Gulf, especially from Syria and Lebanon, and that the most important demands stipulated in the agreement and openness between the Kingdom and Syria is to fight drug trade inside Syria, and to strike The strongholds of the narcotic grain factories as a gesture of goodwill from Syria. Accordingly, the measures taken by the Fourth Division, the restrictions on Lebanese merchants, and the strictness in preventing the smuggling of these materials through the Syrian territories and from there to the Gulf and Jordan.
In turn, security sources confirm to “Nidaa Al-Watan” that the Lebanese state has been fighting this trade for a long time and is working to pursue merchants and promoters, but the developments that took place two and a half years ago, and the exposure of the volume of quantities smuggled from Lebanon to Arab countries, especially the Gulf, pushed the agencies The security forces and the Lebanese army intensified efforts to track down and fight the big heads, and succeeded in detecting a number of shipments before they set off from Lebanon towards their source, in addition to confiscating other quantities within Lebanese territory.
The sources added that the decision to strike drug-manufacturing dens in the northern Bekaa is not new today, but rather it is a continuous process that has intensified during the recent period, especially after the deterioration of relations between Lebanon and the Arab region due to Lebanon leading the export platform, noting that more than twenty laboratories in a short period were dismantled and confiscated. Its equipment is in the towns of Al-Sharawneh, Brital, Horatala, Al-Saeeda, Al-Dar Al-Wasi’a, Ariha, the last of which was on Tuesday evening in the Al-Sharawneh neighborhood, in addition to destroying the promotional and selling “squares” during which the Lebanese army became martyrs during its raids, without that discouraging the leadership from pursuing its clear agenda. In eliminating this phenomenon, even if it took a long time to achieve it.
The sources concluded that many of the wanted have fled to the Syrian interior, and they are under the eyes and supervision of the security services to arrest them upon their return, or to take them over from the Syrian state in the event that the security cover is lifted and they are arrested, since the stage is titled as the war on drugs and the destruction of their factories.
