Islamic State Fighters Torch Syrian Marijuana Plantation Found Hidden Within Vegetable Farm (VIDEO)
by Dave Bender
Islamic State militants in northern Syria confiscated and set fire to a field of marijuana plants, and posted the act to YouTube in late August, according to a media watchdog group.
In the clip, noted by MEMRI, two ISIS terrorists, one toting an AK-47 rifle, are seen standing deep within the field, declaring they have taken over the village of Akhtarin, north of Aleppo, as of August 27th.
“Having defeated the Free Syrian Army, and the groups that robbed the people and spread corruption upon the land, we have seized a field of narcotic plants called cannabis,” one explains, adding that the plants were grown surreptitiously within a vegetable patch.
The camera shows workers uprooting the man-high plants.
“This is very popular in Europe and America,” the fighter says, inspecting the weed. Workers are then shown dousing the piles of dope with gasoline, and setting them alight.
It is unclear if ISIS is also destroying Syria’s reputed opium plantations, many located in the Beka’a Valley with Lebanon, which, for decades were said to bring in millions of dollars in narco-trafficking for the Syrian regime, under the control of Rifaat al-Assad, brother of late president Hafaz al-Assad.
Watch the destruction of the crop:
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