Syria says there were no grounds for Jordanian air strikes on its soil
By Suleiman Al-Khalidi
AMMAN (Reuters) -Syria said on Tuesday there was no justification for Jordanian air strikes on its territory that its neighbour said had targeted drug dealers whose border incursions posed a threat to Jordan's national security.
Jordan has stepped up a campaign against drug traffickers after clashes last month with dozens of people it suspects of links to pro-Iranian militias carrying large hauls of narcotics over its border from Syria, along with arms and explosives.
A deadly strike last Thursday, among several since last year on hideouts of drug dealers and warehouses linked to militias in Syria's south, killed 10 civilians, including children, according to regional intelligence sources corroborated by accounts of residents and witnesses.
"The escalation that we have witnessed in the past few months," a Syrian foreign ministry statement said, "is not at all consistent with what was agreed upon from both sides."
Two Jordanian officials, who asked not to be named, said civilians had not been targeted and that the strikes followed repeated warnings in high-level meetings with Syrian officials.
They said the rise in incidents coincided with increasing attacks on U.S. bases in Kurdish-controlled northern Syria and in Iraq by pro-Iranian militias in solidarity with Palestinian militants fighting Israel's offensive in Gaza.
Jordan's government, like its Western allies, says Lebanon's Iranian-backed Hezbollah group and other pro-Iranian militias who control much of southern Syria are behind the surge in drug and weapons smuggling.
Iran and Hezbollah deny this, saying the accusations are part of a Western plot against them. Syria's government denies that its security and military forces work closely with Iranian-backed militias involved in drug trafficking.
Jordanian officials say they have provided names of key drug dealers, manufacturing facilities and smuggling routes to Syrian authorities.
"No real measure was taken to neutralise this threat and smuggling attempts have witnessed a dangerous increase in numbers," a foreign ministry statement said in response to the Syrian announcement.
The kingdom expected Syria to take speedy and effective measures against those behind the smuggling operations, the Jordanian statement said.
Supplies of a Syrian-made amphetamine known as captagon reaching Gulf Arab states via Jordan are worth billions of dollars a year and finance a host of pro-Iranian and pro-government militias spawned by more than a decade of conflict in Syria, according to U.S. and European officials.
Both Washington and the European Union last year imposed sanctions on senior officials associated with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for alleged involvement in captagon trade, which they say is also a financial lifeline for his inner circle. Assad's government denies any role in captagon trafficking.
Some Jordanian officials say pro-Iranian militias in both Iraq and Syria are using the drug war to pile pressure on Jordan, a staunch U.S. ally that hosts hundreds of U.S. troops.
Washington has given Jordan around $1 billion to bolster border security since Syria's civil war began in 2011, and has recently sent more military aid to that end, Western intelligence sources say.
(Reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi and Nayera Abdallah; editing by Mark Heinrich and Rosalba O'Brien)
