It is not the Syrian front. It is Wadi Araba. Al Jazeera, from Amman: gangs in the Negev send hashish, crystal meth and amphetamines into Jordan, by drone and helium balloon. The Telegraph wrote it on 13 October. The Jordan Times picked it up. After Assad’s fall, late 2024, Captagon from Syria weakened. Jordan turned its face west. That is a route shift, not a peace.

Interior Minister Mazen al-Faraya told Al Jazeera: drone operations from Israel have increased. This year, 15,342 drug cases; 28% trafficking, 72% use. In the first half of 2026, 17 drone-linked interceptions in the south-west. Across all borders, 231 smuggling and infiltration attempts, 56 drones downed. The figures are Jordanian. They are not the IDF’s.

Price pulls. The Telegraph, on Israeli estimates: a kilogram of hashish in Jordan, about £7,500, some 15 times dearer than in Israel. Senator Ammar al-Qudah, a retired general: the networks tie Sinai, the Negev, Wadi Araba; drones of about 50 kilograms; balloons with GPS. It is an interview. It is not a published customs inventory.

Jordanians accuse the Israeli army of not taking it seriously. The Telegraph heard the same grievance: Israeli announcements about weapons from Jordan are “half the story”. The IDF, in Israel Hayom, rejected the idea it is ignoring the problem, mentioned a new division and a fence. Al Jazeera notes accusations of collusion, then the limit: “there is no proof” that the 2012 pattern, on the Egyptian border, is repeating here. We stay on the limit. We do not write collusion.

A reverse migration of drugs, says another retired general: from Sinai, through the Negev, into the kingdom. The border is among the most watched in the world. It still goes through. That is the story. Not a war. A price.

Image: Steffen 962, the southern Wadi Araba crossing, 15 September 2019, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The photograph shows the crossing, not a load and not a drone.

Sources consulted: Jordan-Israel border becomes new hotspot for sophisticated drug trade — Al Jazeera; Jordan steps up border security amid rising drug-smuggling attempts from Israel — Jordan Times.