Merai Rwaished Al-Ramthan, classified as Jordan's number one wanted criminal, was killed in an airstrike that targeted his home in the village of Al-Sha'ab in the rural area of Sweida province early Monday morning. Al-Ramthan is considered the primary person responsible for most drug trafficking operations from Syria to Jordan and hails from the village of Al-Sha'ab, located near the Jordanian border. He is referred to as "Syria's Escobar," named after one of the world's largest drug traffickers, Colombian Pablo Escobar.
He is known for recruiting young tribesmen in the area to involve them in the smuggling network he manages, and he faces ten court rulings from the Jordanian State Security Court, with penalties ranging from 20 to 25 years of hard labor according to previous Jordanian sources. Reports at the end of 2022 mentioned that the Syrian army had arrested Al-Ramthan and imprisoned him; however, this was later proven to be incorrect.
According to Reuters, citing local sources and intelligence, Jordan carried out two rare airstrikes on this day in southern Syria, targeting a drug factory linked to Iran and killing a smuggler alleged to be behind major smuggling operations across the border between the two countries. Sources added that one of the strikes hit an abandoned drug factory in Daraa province, southern Syria, associated with Hezbollah, which is supported by Iran and allied with the Syrian government. The second strike on the village of Al-Sha'ab in the neighboring province of Sweida, near the Jordanian border, resulted in the death of the prominent Syrian drug trafficker Merai Al-Ramthan and members of his family while they were inside their home.
Ryan Ma'arouf, a Syrian researcher monitoring the drug trade, stated that Al-Ramthan's house and the factory were destroyed. Ma'arouf added that the drug factory in the town of Kharab Al-Shahm in Daraa was believed to be a meeting point for smugglers paying money to Hezbollah, corroborating accounts from well-informed local sources. Judicial sources indicated that Jordanian courts had sentenced him to death in absentia several times over recent years for drug trafficking.
Two sources from the region's intelligence services and a Western diplomatic source tracking the situation in southern Syria confirmed that Jordanian warplanes bombed the two drug-related targets in the two rare strikes inside Syria. Reuters noted that "Jordan is a primary destination for Captagon, a cheap addictive amphetamine, and is also a transit point for this substance to Gulf countries. Western and Arab nations claim this drug is produced in Syria and exported from there."
Officials remarked that the strikes were a message to Damascus that it should not misjudge Amman's determination to proceed on this issue while simultaneously leading Arab efforts to end Syria's isolation. Jordanian officials expressed that their concerns about an increase in drug trafficking were raised in recent months during security meetings with Syrian authorities, and they received assurances but did not see any real attempts to clamp down on this trade.
Local citizens confirmed that the strike in western Daraa targeted a water purification station, leading to its complete destruction, as it was believed to have been used as a drug production facility, with no reports of casualties from the strike. The Al-Sha'ab area is considered one of the main points used for smuggling and transit of drugs to Jordan, with numerous smuggling points along the Syrian-Jordanian border.
In his first official comment, Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi confirmed that Jordan would announce any measures taken to protect its national security at the appropriate time, stating, "As for the drug issue, as we have previously confirmed, it is a major threat to the kingdom, the region, and the world in light of the escalating drug trafficking operations."
He added, "We do not take the threat of drug trafficking lightly; if we do not witness effective measures to mitigate this threat, we will do what is necessary to confront it, including taking military action inside Syria to eliminate this extremely dangerous threat not only in Jordan but also towards Gulf countries and other Arab states."
