Jordanian army kills 27 in shootout with Syria smugglers

The Jordanian army stated Thursday that troops have killed 27 suspected smugglers making an attempt to enter the nation from neighbouring Syria. The report on the military’s web site stated that it had thwarted a number of suspected makes an attempt to smuggle medicine into Jordan from Syria, and that enormous portions of narcotics have been seized in separate interventions that additionally left a number of individuals wounded.
The army stated that it was “continuing to apply the newly established rules of engagement and will strike with an iron fist and deal with force and firmness with any infiltration or smuggling attempts to protect the borders.” Earlier this month the army stated a military officer was killed in a shootout with smugglers alongside the lengthy porous border it shares with Syria.

Jordan is dwelling to greater than 650,000 Syrian refugees who fled the civil conflict that has raged there for greater than a decade.
In September, Syrian and Jordanian officers mentioned border safety after Syrian authorities forces captured rebel-held areas alongside the Jordanian frontier. A month later, Jordan’s King Abdullah II spoke with Syrian President Bashar Assad for the primary time in a decade after the 2 international locations reopened a key border crossing.
 

An unlawful drug business has flourished in Syria after 10 years of civil conflict. In current years, the Arab Mediterranean nation has emerged as a scorching spot for making and promoting captagon, an unlawful amphetamine. Both Syria and neighboring Lebanon have grow to be gateways for the drug to the Middle East, and significantly the Gulf.
The U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime stated in a 2014 report that the amphetamine market is on the rise within the Middle East, with busts principally in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria accounting for greater than 55 % of amphetamines seized worldwide.