ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraqi security forces arrested two dealers and seized 600,000 Captagon pills during a joint ambush in the eastern Diyala province on Wednesday, thwarting an international drug smuggling operation bound for a neighboring country.
The General Directorate for Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances Affairs said detachments from the Anbar and Diyala narcotics directorates carried out the security operation in Khanaqin district following continuous monitoring and intelligence gathering.
“The operation resulted in the arrest of two dealers caught in the act, along with the seizure of 600,000 Captagon pills weighing approximately 105 kilograms,” the directorate stated, noting that the pills “were prepared for smuggling to a neighboring country,” without naming it explicitly.
The operation comes amid Iraq's intensified crackdown on drug trafficking networks, with authorities reporting dozens of armed clashes and hundreds of networks dismantled since the beginning of the year.
The joint operation follows a similar joint drug raid on Tuesday by the Basra and Babylon narcotics affairs directorates that left a suspected drug dealer dead and seven security personnel injured after the suspect detonated a hand grenade during an attempted arrest.
In late August, Iraq's anti-drug directorate reported that 4,644 people had been convicted in drug-related cases since the beginning of the year, including 69 death sentences and 267 life sentences.
Authorities also reported dismantling 304 domestic and 54 international trafficking networks, while carrying out 21 operations abroad.
The directorate said at the time that its forces had engaged in 32 armed confrontations with suspected traffickers this year, leaving one security officer dead and 31 wounded.
Iraq remains a destination and transit route for narcotics, with a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report describing it as a conduit for drugs between Southwest Asia, the Arabian Peninsula, and Europe.
To counter rising domestic consumption and a surge in Captagon from Syria, anti-drug operations have scaled up internationally, establishing 36 liaison channels with foreign counterparts.
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