Over the years there have been various recurring tropes and legends regarding the Islamic State. One example I remember was a purported Islamic State document showing prices of slaves, even though it was clear to me that the document was fake. Another recurring legend that has reemerged in the media more recently is the supposed production and use of captagon by Islamic State fighters, as though this drug was behind their fighting prowess, which has frequently been exaggerated anyway. Recently the Italian police claimed to have seized a vast quantity of captagon that supposedly originated from Islamic State, but these claims have been met with skepticism. I share this skepticism and would urge readers to be wary of the wider 'terror-crime nexus' line of analysis that sometimes leaps on these dubious stories to make its case.
The controversy surrounding the seizure of the drugs by the Italian police has been significant enough to attract the attention of the Islamic State media. The editorial in this week's issue of the group's newsletter al-Naba' touches on the matter. In sum, the editorial denounces the idea that the Islamic State manufactured those drugs seized by the Italian police, and argues that in fact the drug cargo is one aspect of the relations between the 'Crusaders' (i.e. the West) and the 'Tawagheet' (idol tyrants) like the Syrian government (denounced here as the 'Nusayri Taghut' and 'Nusayri regime'). The editorial then makes a more general point about the secret nature of relations between the 'Crusaders' and 'Tawagheet', and argues that the drug business and the drug gangs and their financial profits supposedly have great influence over the policies of the countries that import drugs, such that, for example, the desire to have control of the opium production and market is a reason why the Americans will likely not withdraw from Afghanistan ('Khorasan'). I translate the editorial in full below.
In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
Drugs Animate the Relations Between the Crusaders and the Tawagheet!
The Crusader Italian police announced days ago the confiscation of a huge cargo of drugs that has reached the shores of its country coming from the 'port of Latakia' in al-Sham, assessing the value of the cargo that is within the millions of drug pills at a billion dollars!
And the inflation of the value of the cargo was not as strange as the strangeness of the announcement of those Crusaders that this cargo is property of the Islamic State that they accused of dealing in drugs to finance its jihad!
And despite the jubilation of many of the Crusader media at this news and its spread over the widest range, the followers of the events of the war with the Islamic State from the Crusaders quickly cast doubt on the truth of the news, on account of the difficulty for the people to believe it, and for what the news contained from details pertaining to the value of the deal and its source, which were sufficient to illustrate the picture better regarding the source of the drugs and their true owners, for whom the miserable statement of the Italian police tried to cover. And most of the analyses of the reason Italy set off this disgusting lie revolved around businessmen and executive officials in the country from whom the Crusader Italian government is striving to distance the suspicions, or pressures from the 'Mafia' gangs on the government to conceal the source of the goods, in order to cover up the route of their smuggling, or cover up for their manufacturing and export partners for those intoxicants to them.
But what European media exposed has revealed that the issue is bigger than that, for the connection of the issue of drug dealing with political and economic relations between Italy and the Nusayri Taghut in al-Sham, as the aim of the lie of the Islamic State's export of the drugs from the Latakia port that is controlled by the intelligence apparatus of the Nusayri Taghut and the Rafidite militias loyal to it was to conceal the face that gangs affiliated with the Nusayri regime is the one that sent the drugs to Europe, which opens up black files about the issue of the financing of the gangs of the Nusayris and Rafidites through the open and secret relations with the European governments and the businessmen and the gangs connected with them, and the justification from the Crusader Italian government came with the fear of the impact of the exposure of the Nusayri regime on the phosphate business between the two sides.
And this partial event exposes many aspects pertaining to the Crusader campaign against the Islamic State, for it represents an example of the lies that the enemies of God try to attach to the monotheists. However exaggerated they become with detachment from reality, the Crusaders and apostates continue in pumping them through their media in the hope they can find attentive ears as their echoes come again and again in the regions of the earth through their repeating these things time and again, in order to distort the reputation of the mujahideen and turn the people away from the call of truth that they bear.
And likewise the Italian government's covering for the Nusayri regime in the event exposes the nature of the secret relations that connect the Tawagheet ruling the lands of the Muslims with those Crusader states, for they are not limited to the shared hostility to Islam and its people or mutual agreements in international politics or open economic interests only, but also they are connected by secret relations that arise on partnerships in many projects that are not revealed to the people, connected with the weapons and drugs and money laundering and the like from deals of the hidden economy or what they call the 'shadow economy', whose value and returns exceed what occurs in the economy that is laid open to the people.
For the drugs that are produced by the Nusayri regime and the Rafidite militias connected with it and are exported through the ports and airports that they control, have become among the most important sources of supplying the market of drugs in the world in general and in Europe, Africa and the countries of the Arabian Peninsula in particular. And the gangs that import the drugs have great influence inside the governments of the importing countries in what they possess from vast wealth and relations with the top officials in them. And this explains aspects of the mutual agreements between the countries on the two sides of the drugs business, despite what appears outwardly from competition and conflict caused by disagreement in political orientations and alliances.
For if the oil and arms companies have great influence over the Crusader governments and great power to direct their policies, the drug gangs and financial institutions benefiting from them have no less impact and are no weaker in influence, and indeed many of the decisions of those governments and changes of their internal and external policies, behind them stand pressure and bribes of those gangs and institutions, but they cover their deeds pushed by that with various coverings of doctrines or politics or economy.
And what shows the impact of the drugs on the world as well is what some of the political and economic analyses have managed to understand in that among the reasons for the Crusader campaign against Khorasan and the remaining of the Crusader armies in it is to ensure the continuation of the production of 'opium' and control its market, in a way what is similar to what they do in the regions of oil production and other resources. And therefore it is likely that America will not withdraw its army from there until it ensures the profits of the drug gangs affiliated with it from Afghan 'opium' and the interests of the banks and financial institutions into which those gangs pump billions of dollars from the wealth of this business, in addition to the other American interests in the region connected with the military and intelligence bases or connected with the conflict with Russia, China and Iran in the the aspects of politics and the economy, the discussion of which occurs openly and the agreements regarding which are documented in official treaties.
And paying attention to these hidden aspects and other things from 'international relations' provides a great contribution to understanding the global variables in a better way, just as it helps to realise truths about which the media do not speak much from the secrets of politics and economy. Therefore one must place them alongside the factors that openly impact them both, in order to obtain better understanding of the activities of the Crusader states and what is published from their news.