The Iraqi National Security Apparatus confirmed that the assassination of al-Qaisi will strengthen “the agency’s determination to continue its hard work to confront criminal gangs and drug dealers.”
An Iraqi security source, who requested anonymity, refused, in an interview with “Sky News Arabia”, to be certain about the nature of the motives for the assassination, requesting: “Patience and not anticipate the results of the investigations, even if the accusation fingers are, in principle, directed at the drug trafficking gangs.” The target officer is the head of the contraband unit of the National Security Agency.
And last February, Judge Faisal Al-Saadi, who specializes in drug cases, was assassinated by gunmen in Al-Amarah, raising deep suspicions that drug cartels are behind such repeated operations.
Maysan governorate, whose center is the city of Al-Amarah, in southern Iraq, is also witnessing security tensions from time to time due to clan conflicts, settling political scores and drug smuggling in this border governorate with Iran, where drug trafficking and abuse have increased in recent years.
drug cartels
- Experts believe that the growing phenomenon of drug trafficking in and through Iraq at the hands of local and foreign organized mafias and gangs, feeds on complex and overlapping external and internal causes, the most important of which are the country’s chronic political and security crises, the country’s proximity to the regional drug trade and smuggling lines, as well as the spread of corruption, unemployment, poverty and clogged horizons In front of the Iraqis, especially the young among them, and all this makes it difficult to curb and eliminate this growing phenomenon.
- They point to the increasing danger of the expansion of the activity of these drug trafficking networks in and through Iraq, in light of the alarming rise in the number of drug addicts in the country, especially among the young and young age groups, who are the first victims of the devastating scourge of addiction.
From lane to field
The researcher in Iraqi affairs, Ali Al-Baydar, said in an interview with the “Sky News Arabia” website: “The drug trade in Iraq flourished after the year 2003, when the country in general was free from the spread of drug addiction and trafficking, due to the strict and deterrent punitive laws, which were It was approved at the time against drug users and traffickers, which carried the death penalty, and therefore Iraq was at that time just a secondary passage and a marginal crossing point in the international drug trade routes, but unfortunately after that it turned into an open field for that dirty and dangerous trade, and the eastern borders of Iraq became a smuggling and trafficking center with drugs.”
Thus, the security and intelligence confrontation alone is not sufficient without social and economic treatments for the factors motivating the growth of drug trade in Iraqi society, and it is necessary to focus on tightening checkpoints, control and raiding points along the border areas, especially adjacent to Iran, and demanding that it control the borders from its side in the face of drug smuggling operations and gangs. According to the Iraqi researcher.
Afghanistan’s role
- “The fact that Iran is adjacent to Afghanistan, which is the largest country for the cultivation and trade of drugs, increases Iraq’s negative impact, and of course there is security laxity, chaos and strong mafias in Iraq, and this is why the country becomes a fertile and attractive environment for drug trade, for example, Iran has borders with other countries, but because of the control of these Countries are strictly bound by their borders, the Iranian and Afghan drug cartels are unable to bring their toxic goods into them,” according to Ali Al-Baydar.
- “Perhaps the most important factor here that makes it difficult to fully control the Iraqi-Iranian border is its length, which reaches more than 1,400 kilometers, and these borders are characterized by very complex and difficult terrain, as there are many overlapping and adjacent residential areas,” he concludes.
shocking numbers
- Statistics of the Supreme Judicial Council in Iraq for the year 2021 indicate that “the rate of drug addiction may reach 50 percent of the youth group, and that the largest percentage of drug abuse reaches 70 percent, in areas and poor neighborhoods where unemployment is high.”
- The Directorate of Narcotics Control of the Iraqi Ministry of Interior announced earlier this year that “the governorates of Basra and Maysan rank first in smuggling and abuse in the southern governorates.”
- The Law on Combating Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances in Iraq, No. 50 issued in 2017, provides for severe penalties, up to the death penalty, as in Article 27 of it, and to life imprisonment, as in Article 28 of the law.
- The most abused types of narcotics in Iraq are crystal white, hashish and Captagon pills, most of which enter the country through the long border with Iran.
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