[zonbron]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door Bhairav

En wie vrede wilt, rookt cannabis.

Dat betwijfel ik.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...-its-weed.html

This Is Where ISIS Gets Its Weed
Most Lebanese hash is produced by Shia who are sworn enemies of the so-called Islamic State, but that doesn’t mean they won’t sell them a ton or two.

THE BEKAA VALLEY, Lebanon — They are killing Syrians and each other at an astronomical rate but there seems to be one thing that jihadist troops and Assad allies are working together on: getting high on Lebanon’s supply.

Just across a snow-capped mountain range, in the Bekaa Valley, are weed fields tended mostly by poor, Assad-friendly Shia farmers. But business is business. They tell The Daily Beast they are selling their products to ISIS recruits, who are allegedly blazing Lebanese blond and reselling it to fund their atrocities.

“Last month we sold one ton of hash to ISIS,” says “Imad,” who farms a 15-acre cannabis plot in the shadow of the Qalamoun Mountains that separate the valley from Syria. (He declined to use his real name out of fear of arrest.) The 50-year-old father of six has fought 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 captured 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 establish a self-proclaimed caliphate.

But none of that stopped Imad and some of his fellow farmers from brokering the drug deal with the holier than thou “caliphate” that he says also included “some coke and pills.”

Assad’s fighters, less surprisingly, 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 cautious 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 hunt down and kill those in Arsal who butchered 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 turn 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 happen when militants make orders.

...