HAMAS' BRAVE WARRIORS OR DRUG ADDICTS?

Brazenly they kicked the door down. There was a man and a woman inside who retreated to the kitchen and offered no resistance. One of the attackers riffle-butted the man and then tied him to a chair. Another attacker came into the kitchen with an eight month old baby in his arm. They let the man and his wife watch as they placed the baby in the oven and turned on the temperature to the max. Then they gang-raped the woman and then shot her in her head. For the finale they pumped a few rounds into the man.

No it’s not something out of a horror fiction from Stephen King, but from mobile phones of Hamas terrorists on the October 7 raid on Israeli civilians in their homes. The IDF put on a 43 minute display of video footages for international journalists. It was a show of unimaginable cruelty and sadism. Many of the attendees came out of the room distraught and crying.

Hate is a terrible driving force but it often has honour of restraints to cruelty. Terrorists do what they do, create mayhem. Sure, there is no compunction to place a bomb here and there to cause as much casualties and damage as far as possible. As bad as it sounds, that is at least comprehensible. But what Hamas did on Oct 7 was practically unrestrained cruelty.

What makes men commit violence in such a diabolical way? The answer is psychoactive drugs. More specifically, Captagon, a brand of fenethylline. Captagon is a Central Nervous System stimulator that can increase alertness, boost concentration and physical performance, and provide a feeling of well-being, confidence, and aggression. It impares the orbital and ventromedial prefrontal cortices thus suppresses emotionally-driven moral judgment.

Captagon is an illicit drug used predominately in the Middle East at the moment. It is easy to produce with very high profit margins. It comes in two version. A lower quality one that sells for $1 to $3 and a higher quality one going for upwards of $15 per tablet. 

It is very popular in the ME. The elites buy the higher quality one for recreational use. Millions of foreign labourers use the lower quality ones to suppress hunger and sustain their energy levels to work much longer hours, thus increase earning capacity. A person can go without food for 2 or 3 days.

Captagon imbues a person with great courage but drains away emotions, a perfect ingredient for violent disasters. His aggression increases whilst his sense of right and wrong diminishes. A perfect fit for suicide bombers. And for those going into battle.

It is well-known jihadists use Captagon throughout the ME. The various videos of the Oct 7 attack show Hamas terrorists operating with non-human calmness and nonchalance. That’s not bravery, but clear sign of influence of high dose of Captagon. It explains for the barbarism, but in no way dilutes culpability.

Captagon is the trademark name for Fenethylline, a synthetic amphetamine-type stimulant. In the 1980s it was produced in Southern Europe and smuggled via Turkey down to ME countries. The major producer today is the Assad regime of Syria. According to The New York Times report of 2021 December, the Syrian Army's elite 4th Armoured Division, commanded by President Assad’s brother Maher al-Assad, runs the production and distribution of Captagon, among other drugs. According to European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, to avoid detection, the drugs are smuggled to Europe and then round-tripped back to ME and the Arabian peninsular. Syria’s GDP is only about US$12b compared to the trade in Captagon which is estimated at US$57b. This effectively makes Syria a narco-state. Traffickers appear to be mostly Syrians and Lebanese.

Perhaps for Syrians and Lebanese, the whole Palestinian issue is now simply a matter of business, to better facilitate the Captagon trade. Get rid of the pesky Israelis, it would then be easy to smuggle drugs overland across porous borders all the way from Syria down to the Arabian Peninsular.

Countries with high transactions in Captagon include Jordan, Kuwait, UAE. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and of course, Palestinians. New markets are being developed.

The scale of transactions is mammoth. For example, in September, UAE foiled 13 tons of pills, with a market value of €700 million, found hidden in five shipping containers. Closer to home, in March 2021 Malaysian customs officials seized captagon pills worth US$1.2 billion that were hidden in trolley tires, making it the biggest drug haul ever recorded in the country.

So, as is always the case with world events, things are often not what it seems. Hamas wants to project for their impressionable youthful admirers, a regiment of fearsome warriors with courage to inflict the most gruesome damage on the enemy both military and civilians, but who are in effect, drug addicts by and large. In any case, either one or the other isn’t something to celebrate about.

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