Jordan's armed forces said they carried out a predawn operation on Sunday targeting drug and arms smuggling networks along the kingdom's northern border, as authorities escalate efforts to curb trafficking.
The raid, which the military branded the "Jordanian Deterrence Operation", was launched in the early hours of Sunday morning.
The military said it struck a number of sites used by traffickers, including factories, workshops and warehouses that served as launch points for operations into Jordan. The locations were identified based on intelligence and operational data, according to a statement carried by the state news agency Petra.
The targets were destroyed in what the army described as precise strikes aimed at preventing weapons and narcotics from reaching Jordanian territory.
The military said trafficking groups have adopted new methods, exploiting weather conditions and difficult terrain in the broader regional environment to evade detection. It added that the increase in smuggling attempts has posed a significant challenge to border guard units and supporting formations tasked with securing the frontier.
The army referenced the role of "current regional circumstances" as a factor being exploited by smuggling networks. It was a possible reference to the fluid security environment in southern Syria following the fall of Bashar Al Assad’s regime, as well as broader regional instability that traffickers have increasingly exploited.
The Jordanian Armed Forces said they would deploy "all their capabilities and firmness" to tackle the smuggling networks.
In another announcement on Sunday, a Jordanian anti-narcotics department said it had dismantled a nine-person trafficking network operating in the capital Amman. It said another raid on drug dealers in Irbid, Jordan's third-largest city, led to 1,000 pills and 5kg of hashish being seized, while a lorry driver was arrested near a border crossing with 14,000 narcotic pills hidden inside his vehicle.
Jordan has in recent years hardened its response to what it sees as an organised and increasingly sophisticated network of traffickers operating along its northern frontier, particularly across the border with Syria.
Sunday's operation is not the first of its kind. Jordan carried out similar air strikes targeting smuggling infrastructure in southern Syria in December 2023 and again in December 2025.
In February, Syrian authorities seized a cache of 75 hot-air balloons along with more than two million Captagon pills, from a gang allegedly preparing to smuggle the drugs into Jordanian territory.
Earlier this year, the army said it had intercepted multiple attempts to smuggle drugs using remotely guided balloons – a tactic designed to bypass traditional border controls by overwhelming surveillance systems. Authorities have also reported seizures of large quantities of narcotics, including Captagon pills, as well as weapons and equipment used in trafficking operations.
Captagon trafficking has become a regional concern, with repeated large-scale seizures reported across the Gulf and wider Middle East.
In recent months alone, Kuwaiti authorities said they intercepted about 500,000 pills hidden in bags of onions, while a joint operation with Iraq netted more than 300,000 pills. Iraqi and Syrian forces have also announced seizures exceeding 400,000 pills, and Dubai Police said they confiscated more than 14 million pills in a co-ordinated cross-border operation with Kuwait.
Smugglers have used increasingly elaborate concealment methods, hiding shipments in goods such as food produce and construction materials, underscoring the industrial scale and cross-border nature of the trade.
In March, three Jordanian security personnel were killed during a raid in east Amman when a suspected drug dealer opened fire on an anti-narcotics unit, highlighting the risks faced by security forces confronting trafficking networks inside the country.
Jordan has repeatedly warned that the scale and sophistication of smuggling operations have grown in recent years, turning the issue into a national security priority. The country has sought to establish and maintain a drug-free border with Syria following the fall of Assad's regime in December 2024, with officials noting that Captagon production had largely halted under the new Syrian leadership. Syria has embarked on its own efforts to clamp down on drug smuggling, including in joint efforts with Lebanon.
The armed forces said they would continue to act "pre-emptively and decisively" against any threats to the kingdom's security and sovereignty.
