Drug production and trafficking in the Bekaa Valley

Editorial illustration: Drug production and trafficking in the Bekaa Valley

Original editorial landscape illustration; no specific site or route is identified.

The Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon has a long association with cannabis cultivation and, more recently, synthetic-drug production and trafficking. Its proximity to Syria links local markets and production sites with a wider border economy. An April 2021 An-Nahar report, drawing on Al Arabiya reporting, described continuing cannabis cultivation in the northern Bekaa alongside the expansion of Captagon production. The region’s drug economy involves particular producers, traders, armed actors and enforcement agencies. It should not be treated as an activity shared by all residents or all members of a family or community.

Cannabis and synthetic drugs

The 2021 report describes a change in the relative prominence of cannabis and Captagon, rather than a complete replacement of one by the other. Cannabis cultivation requires agricultural land, whereas synthetic tablets depend on manufacturing facilities and chemical inputs. The article associates the growth of Captagon with the disruption around the Lebanese–Syrian border after 2011 and the expansion of production in Syria. These activities can share commercial relationships and routes while remaining different production systems. A report about a tablet laboratory should therefore not be counted as evidence of the size of cultivated cannabis acreage.

Baalbek and reported laboratories

An-Nahar’s account refers to a major Captagon facility discovered in Baalbek in 2014 and a smaller facility raided near Younine early in 2021. Former interior minister Marwan Charbel is quoted describing production in Syria and laboratories in the Bekaa that the Lebanese army had raided. These reported operations demonstrate state enforcement activity within the same region where commentators alleged protection and weak control. They do not support either a claim that authorities never intervened or a conclusion that the production economy had been dismantled.

Cross-border connections

The report places al-Qusayr and areas around Damascus within the wider manufacturing and trafficking geography, while identifying the northern Bekaa as connected to those locations. It also discusses the possibility that a shipment intercepted in Saudi Arabia had transited Lebanon from Syria. That possibility, attributed to Charbel, differs from a finding that the tablets were manufactured in Lebanon. Production origin, transit location, port of departure and destination are separate facts. The distinction matters when a seizure abroad is used to describe the economy of a Lebanese region.

Hezbollah allegations and denial

An-Nahar reports allegations that Hezbollah or people close to it protected drug-related activity and quotes commentary linking particular production areas with armed control. The same account records Hassan Nasrallah’s denial of organizational involvement and his statement that drug trafficking was religiously prohibited. The accusations and denial are both part of the public controversy. Control or influence in an area is not by itself a ledger of drug receipts, and allegations against named traders cannot be generalized to every resident, clan member or business in the Bekaa.

The wider financing debate

Gil Riza’s 2023 INSS study places counterfeit medicines, illicit stimulants and other criminal activity within a wider account of Hezbollah financing. It discusses manufacturing and distribution separately and distinguishes direct organizational activity from supporters contributing part of their profits. That framework helps explain the range of relationships alleged around Bekaa drug production. A supplier may be described as protected by an armed actor, as a financial contributor or as an organizational operative; those descriptions are not interchangeable. The study’s broad estimates do not establish the income from an individual Bekaa facility.

Developments in 2025

Caroline Rose’s October 2025 CTC Sentinel study describes intensified enforcement on the Syrian–Lebanese frontier after Assad’s fall. She reports laboratory interdictions and clashes involving smuggling networks, and interprets a stronger Lebanese enforcement role as connected with changes in the regional balance of power. Her account includes the killing of Ali Mounzer Zeaiter, known as Abu Salleh, in Baalbek in August 2025. That named individual and event should not be confused with the separate later arrest of Nouh Zaiter reported by other sources.

The reported Nouh Zaiter arrest

Okaz reported on 20 November 2025 that the Lebanese army had arrested Nouh Zaiter in an ambush near al-Kanisa and Baalbek. It described long-running allegations concerning drug production, trafficking, weapons and other offenses, and reported more than 40 arrest warrants. The article also repeated allegations that relationships with Hezbollah helped him avoid arrest. The reported arrest is a later development in an individual case; it is not a conviction resolving every accusation and does not establish a legal finding against all people sharing the Zaiter name.

A changing border economy

Rose’s analysis emphasizes that dismantling large facilities can displace activity toward smaller sites and contested areas without eliminating demand or commercial expertise. This is relevant to the Bekaa because local trafficking is connected to developments across the Syrian frontier. Enforcement, armed protection and market adaptation can change at different speeds. A regional account must therefore attach production and protection claims to a period and named actors, while keeping the broader livelihoods and population of the valley separate from the activities of particular criminal networks.

The July 2025 Yammouneh raid

On July 13, 2025, the Lebanese Army announced a raid on a Captagon facility in Yammouneh, in the Baalbek area. Its statement described machinery weighing about ten tonnes, large quantities of Captagon and other drugs, and a tunnel approximately 300 metres long used for access and equipment storage. Soldiers dismantled equipment and filled the tunnel, and the army said the case had been referred to the competent judicial authorities while efforts to arrest those involved continued. The statement documents a production site and enforcement action; it does not name a Hezbollah commander or establish the ownership of the facility.

References

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