Anonymous raid kills notorious Syrian drug dealer

ALBAWABA - A notorious Syrian drug trafficker was killed in an airstrike of undetermined origin, but said to be carried out by Jordan.

Jordan has not reacted to the air raid in Syria's south near the kingdom's border.

Syrian news outlets said Marei Rumthan, one of the major drug dealers and smugglers in Syria's southern regions, was killed in the raid that targeted his residence in Suwayda, in the southernmost tip of the war-ravaged country. Syrian security forces have little influence in several governorates outside the capital city Damascus, the seat of the presidency of Bashar Assad.

Unconfirmed reports claimed that Rumthan's wife and children were also killed in the strike, but the reports could not be independently verified.

Unnamed officials quoted in the Syrian media said that the airstrike was carried out by the Royal Jordanian Air Force. Jordan remained quiet on Rumthan's killing.

The kingdom has been fighting an uphill battle with drug traffickers in southern Syria, who are swamping the kingdom with smuggled drugs, some of it for domestic use and the remainder for re-export to neighboring countries in the Gulf Arab region.

The Syrian media described Rumthan as one of the "most prominent drug dealers" in his country and a "point man for smuggling drugs to Jordan." He is nicknamed "Syria's Escobar," after the Colombian "Pablo Escobar," the biggest and most famous global drug dealer.

Rumthan hails from the village of al-Shaab, south of As-Suwayda, one of Syria's 14 provinces in the southernmost part of the country bordering Jordan. It is said that he had a strong contacts with drug dealers in Lebanon as well.

On Dec. 21, 2022, the Syrian Observatory said that the Syrian Military Intelligence released Rumthan on Dec. 20 after a five-day arrest under "mediation" by the Shiite Lebanese Hezbollah group in Suwayda countryside, in exchange for a huge ransom."

This raid followed a statement issued in Jordan recently after a meeting of the foreign ministers of Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Saudi Arabia in the Jordanian capital, Amman. The statement called for  "strengthening cooperation between Damascus and countries affected by drug trafficking and smuggling across the Syrian borders."

This article was researched and compiled by Albawaba writer Razan Abdelhadi.