Assad’s $5bn ‘jihadi drug’ empire: The pill makes terrorists feel impervious to bullets and survive without sleep – now the world braces for a captagon boom

This picture taken on July 21, 2022 shows a view of sacks of confiscated captagon pills, presented at the judicial police headquarters in the city of Zahle in Lebanon's central Bekaa valley. - A decade of appalling civil war has left Syria fragmented and in ruins but one thing crosses every frontline: the drug fenethylline, commercially known as captagon. The stimulant -- once notorious for its association with Islamic State fighters -- has spawned an illegal $10-billion industry that not only props up the pariah regime of President Bashar al-Assad, but many of his enemies. It has turned Syria into the world's latest narco state, and sunk deep roots in neighbouring Lebanon as its economy has collapsed. (Photo by JOSEPH EID / AFP) (Photo by JOSEPH EID/AFP via Getty Images)