The security campaign unfolding in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley over recent weeks appears to go much deeper and further than a routine crackdown on illicit trade. Instead, it looks more like an attempt to break a status quo that has endured for years: fortified areas, well-known networks, and publicly circulated names – without any real accountability. For the first time, a file long sealed for political reasons has been opened, and the Lebanese Army has entered drug-manufacturing and trafficking strongholds in areas long accustomed to evading the state’s grip, particularly in the Bekaa.
The scale of the raids, the nature of the seizures, and the timing of the arrests have pushed the issue back into the spotlight as a matter of sovereignty par excellence, rather than a fleeting security concern. The arrest of Nouh Zeaiter – one of Lebanon’s most prominent drug traffickers – in November was an early test of the seriousness of this trajectory. Yet what followed did not dispel doubts; instead, it opened the door to even more questions.
The military court sentenced Zeaiter to one month in prison in each of four cases, acquitted him in three others, and dropped 33 lawsuits due to the statute of limitations in the cases it examined – an outcome that starkly contrasts with a career that turned his name into a symbol of a shadow economy where drug and arms trafficking intertwined with political and security protection. This contradiction is even sharper given that Zeaiter is listed under U.S. and European sanctions and is wanted by Interpol.
Against this backdrop, a central question emerges: Are we witnessing a genuine beginning to the dismantling of a deeply entrenched system, or merely a carefully calibrated security display with a limited ceiling? The clear gap between energetic security action on the ground and judicial rulings described as “farce-like” places the state before a real test: either to go all the way in asserting sovereignty, or to settle for partial measures that leave the core of the problem untouched.
Lifting the Cover
For years, drug networks in the Bekaa operated not in secrecy but in full view. Their members were widely known, their areas of influence clearly defined, and their production and smuggling routes largely identified. Their protection stemmed not only from state weakness, but also from a political and security umbrella that critics say was provided by Hezbollah, effectively turning large swathes of the region into zones beyond pursuit and accountability. Recent developments suggest less a wholesale dismantling of these networks than a shift in political will: the cover was removed, and the army advanced.
In the view of observers, this shift does not represent a sudden sovereign awakening, but rather the outcome of intersecting internal and external factors. Hezbollah, having suffered a defeat in its most recent war with Israel, is now less able to impose its internal equations as it once did. At the same time, the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria led to the collapse of one of the pillars of a cross-border production and smuggling system that had served as the logistical backbone of the drug trade. As massive factories along the Lebanese-Syrian border were exposed, the new Syrian authorities began pressing to shut down smuggling routes, with direct repercussions inside Lebanon.
Mohammad Sablouh, director of the Legal Support Program at the Cedar Center for Legal Studies, links the timing of the campaign to mounting international – particularly U.S. – pressure on Lebanon over Hezbollah’s weapons. In remarks to Alhurra, he argues that the state is trying to demonstrate its commitment to enforcing the “rule of law” by opening the drug file, in an effort to ease external pressure.
The move also comes within the context of Lebanese government efforts to persuade Saudi Arabia to lift the ban imposed in 2021 on Lebanese agricultural exports, after vegetable shipments were found to be laden with Captagon pills.
In this context, Interior Minister Ahmad Hajjar described drug-fighting as “a priority for Lebanon and for the Arab community” during his meeting last September with Saudi Ambassador to Beirut Walid Bukhari.
Retired Brigadier General Naji Malaeb, a strategic expert, confirms that the army’s campaign falls within a strategy approved by the political authorities and has three objectives: improving Lebanon’s international image, putting an end to a phenomenon that has inflicted severe damage on the country, and cutting off funding sources for armed groups that benefited from drug trafficking. He stresses to Alhurra that cross-border smuggling constituted, at certain stages, a key source of funding for Hezbollah.
Political analyst and lawyer Amin Bashir, for his part, believes that what is happening “is not a coup in state policy, but a belated activation of security tools that had been paralyzed by the party’s influence.” He adds that developments are “primarily linked to external international pressure on Lebanon, centered on an issue inseparable from the monopoly of arms: drying up Hezbollah’s sources of funding, with drug trafficking being one of the most prominent.”
The State in the Dock
In 2019, the United Nations ranked Lebanon third worldwide as a hashish exporter. In April 2020, hashish was legalized for medical and industrial use, making Lebanon the first Arab country to do so.
The more dangerous shift, however, according to a study published by the Carnegie Middle East Center last March, lies in Lebanon’s transition to playing a central role in the Captagon trade. The center pointed to the emergence of new networks born during the Syrian war and expanded alongside the growth of Lebanon’s cash economy following the 2019 financial collapse. These networks have gone beyond traditional tribal structures, building cross-border relationships that transcend divisions.
Sablouh highlights a fundamental paradox: “Any serious campaign today condemns the state more than it exonerates it.” Lebanon, he says, “has over the past years become a hub for the production and export of prohibited substances, as drug empires were allowed to grow while official action was limited to pursuing minor offenders and manufacturing illusory heroics.” He asks: “If the state is capable of acting today, who paralyzed it all these years, and why did its toughness appear only in other files that were fabricated?”
Dr. Mohammad Mustafa Othman, head of the Arab Authority for Combating Drugs and an international training specialist, also considers the army’s campaign in the Bekaa “late,” but nonetheless describes it as a “positive and necessary step,” though “insufficient unless it is accompanied by the pursuit of major figures rather than settling for arresting small-time dealers or users.”
Othman notes to Alhurra that the army “carried out qualitative operations in sensitive areas, including raids and the demolition of drug manufacturing and storage dens, particularly in the Sharawneh area of the Bekaa and in the Shatila camp in Beirut.”
Zeaiter: A Test of Resolve
The Nouh Zeaiter case represents a real test of the seriousness of the political and judicial system, not merely an isolated incident. “Dropping dozens of cases at once due to the statute of limitations, reclassifying felony cases as misdemeanors, and the unprecedented speed in adjudicating his cases,” Sablouh stresses, “all raise serious questions about whether the judicial path is moving toward dismantling networks or containing the fallout of the arrest.” He voices concern that this speed may be “a prelude to closing the file through limited rulings that allow for early release.”
Bashir, however, denies the existence of “lenient rulings,” explaining that decisions issued so far “concern only misdemeanor cases, while felony cases are still under review.” This is echoed by Malaeb, who notes that “the judiciary has not yet ruled on serious felony crimes, such as firing at state officials and drug trafficking,” adding that “sessions scheduled for next May could lead to harsh sentences.”
This debate unfolds amid rising international criticism, most recently including calls within the U.S. Congress to impose sanctions on Lebanese judges suspected of facilitating the work of networks linked to Hezbollah.
The bottom line, according to Sablouh, is that what is happening in the Bekaa “is not merely a security battle, but a real test of the state’s will. Lifting political cover is a necessary condition, but it is not enough. Without a transparent judicial process and clear political continuity, this campaign may remain just a fleeting moment in a long history of settlements.”
Othman, for his part, stresses that combating drugs cannot be limited to a security solution alone. He calls for a comprehensive approach that includes “medical treatment and psychological and social rehabilitation for users, alongside a decisive role for the judiciary in preventing prisons from becoming incubators for crime, and addressing the overcrowding crisis, which he described as a ticking time bomb.”
The article is a translation of the original Arabic.
