A captured member of ISIS terrorist gangs in Kirkuk being apprehended by the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (ICTS), Iraq, November 4th, 2026.
Photo courtesy of the Iraqi News Agency (INA).
Syrian border guards traded fire on Nov. 6 with smugglers crossing from Lebanon near Serghaya, in rural Damascus, and seized 280 kilograms of hashish and 28,000 Captagon pills after the gunmen fled back into Lebanon. Syria’s border security commander for the region has said that “most smuggling gangs” on that border are affiliated with Iran-backed Hezbollah, which denies involvement in the drug trade.
Captagon was originally a German brand name for the prescription drug fenethylline, which was later banned internationally. According to the EU Drugs Agency, illegal tablets now sold under that name typically contain amphetamine, often mixed with caffeine.
The same day, authorities in the United Arab Emirates announced that a tip from Iraq’s Interior Ministry had led them to an international network that planned to smuggle 200,000 Captagon pills and more than 30 kilograms of cocaine, crystal methamphetamine, marijuana, hashish and synthetic cannabinoids into the country through Ras Al Khaimah.
The UAE’s National Drug Enforcement Authority said it had arrested all 20 members of the network. Several were caught trying to enter the country, and the rest were picked up in separate raids by police in Ras Al Khaimah, Dubai, Sharjah and Ajman, working with Iraq’s General Directorate of Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances Affairs.
The bust comes as Captagon production and trafficking networks expand into Iraq following Assad’s fall.
Iran’s proxies have long participated in the Middle East’s drug trade. In October 2024, the Treasury Department called Captagon “a billion-dollar illicit enterprise” operated by senior members of the Syrian regime, and sanctioned Lebanon-based trafficker Khaldoun Hamieh. Treasury said Hamieh controlled Captagon labs in Sayyida Zainab, near Damascus, an area largely under the control of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah. It said his ties to Maher al-Assad, the Syrian army’s Fourth Division and Hezbollah allowed him to move the pills from Lebanon into Jordan.
Assad’s fall in December 2024 did not end the trade. According to the EU Drugs Agency’s 2026 strategic assessment, producers moved closer to their markets, including Iraq. Iran-aligned militias in Iraq and Yemen took over the transit fees that regime networks once collected. The report says Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, an umbrella of mostly Iran-backed militias drawing state salaries, reportedly collect fees at checkpoints and use southern ports such as Basra.
Among countries surveyed for the EU assessment, Iraq was the only one that described itself as both a source and a transit route for Captagon, and the only one that described itself as a source of methamphetamine. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime recorded a 3,380% increase in Iraq’s Captagon seizures between 2019 and 2023.
The Trump administration has used terrorism designations against major drug-trafficking organizations. Days after taking office, Trump signed Executive Order 14157, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio followed by designating eight cartels and gangs as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. They included the Sinaloa Cartel, Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (Jalisco New Generation Cartel), Tren de Aragua and MS-13. The military has since carried out strikes on drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean, which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has described as strikes on narco-terrorists.
Congress has taken notice of the Captagon trade as well. In January, Reps. French Hill (R-Ark.) and Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) introduced the Countering Captagon and Narcotics Post-Assad Act. The bill’s findings state that the shifting drug trade, “particularly in Iraq, could pose a significant threat to regional stability and United States interests.” It would require the secretary of defense to deliver a strategy for disrupting networks “linked to the former regime of Bashar al-Assad, Hezbollah, and Iran-backed proxies.” The bill remains in the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Washington has separately designated and sanctioned several Iran-backed Iraqi militias. The State Department designated Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq (League of the Righteous) a Foreign Terrorist Organization in January 2020. In April 2026, Treasury sanctioned Kata’ib Hezbollah, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq and at least three other Iran-backed militias for attacks on U.S. personnel and for diverting Iraq’s wealth to finance terrorism. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the United States “will not allow Iraq’s terrorist militias, backed by Iran, to threaten American lives or interests.”
Since late February, Iran and allied Iraqi militias have launched about 1,000 attacks using drones and missiles against Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, a longtime U.S. partner, killing 32 people and wounding nearly 150, according to Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani. In March, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Popular Mobilization Forces militias, claimed attacks on an oil refinery in the region and on the UAE consulate in Erbil.
Iraq has also expanded its domestic seizures and intelligence sharing. Interior Ministry spokesman Miqdad Miri said Iraq seized about 2.8 tons of narcotics from January through October 2026, while courts sentenced 6,045 defendants, including 348 to life in prison and 86 to death. Seizures included 600,000 Captagon pills in Khanaqin, Diyala province, and 120 kilograms of narcotics taken from six foreign suspects in Iraqi waters. A ministry operation in Maysan province netted 54 suspects and 5 kilograms of drugs. The same narcotics directorate that tipped off the UAE passed intelligence to Libya’s National Anti-Narcotics Agency in October, leading to the seizure of 1.2 million pills and the arrest of a Libyan national.
Iraq’s police are dismantling networks and sharing intelligence with the Gulf, while the EU reports that militias tied to Tehran collect fees on the same drug. Washington has designated cartels in the Western Hemisphere as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. The pending House bill would require the Pentagon to produce a strategy against Captagon networks linked to Iran’s proxies.
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