They are killing Syrians and each other at an astronomical degree but there appears to be one thing that jihadist troops and Assad allies are working together on: getting high on Lebanon’s supply.
Just across a snow-covered mountain range, in the Bekaa Valley, are weed fields tended mostly by poor, Assad-friendly Shiite farmers. But business is business.
They tell The Daily Beast they are selling their products to ISIS recruits, who are reportedly blazing Lebanese blond and reselling it to fund their atrocities in the war-torn country.
“Last month we sold one ton of hash to ISIS,” says “Imad,” who farms a 60000 m² cannabis plot in the shadow of the Qalamoun Mountains that separate the valley from Syria. (He declined to give his real name out of fear of arrest.)
The 50-year-old father of six has battled in Syria with Hezbollah against the so-called Islamic State, often referred to as ISIS.
And he was related to one of the Lebanese soldiers abducted and beheaded by jihadists in the border town of Arsal, a key base of support in Lebanon for the Sunni sectarian fundamentalist movement that has used mass murder, torture, and rape to create a self-proclaimed caliphate.
But none of that deterred Imad and his fellow farmers from brokering the drug deal with the terrorist group that he says also included “some coke and pills.”
Assad’s fighters, less unexpectedly, also like to go to war with a buzz, and also want a piece of the action distributing one of Lebanon’s largest exports.
“We sell a bit to people in the Syrian army, too,” said Imad, a little careful on the subject. “It’s small scale, one to two kilos at a time.”
Imad, sporting a trim beard and green military fatigues, says he hates ISIS with a bitter passion and swears he will chase and kill those in Arsal who slaughtered his relative, but, again, business is business. The war, he says, has blocked the traditional trade routes through Syria to markets in Jordan and Turkey, so selling to militants is one of the ways to continue to make a profit.
“Before the war in Syria we would cross the mountains with 200 kilos [of hash] each, get the cash and come back,” he told The Daily Beast.
Nowadays the only exports to Syria take place when militants make orders.