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ISIS fighters are on meth, claims captured ISIS militant - Connection to Saudi Prince

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R

RustyNails

Member
Syria fighters may be fueled by amphetamines

(CNN) Islamic State fighters may be fueled not only by ideological fervor, but also by a black-market amphetamine popular in the Middle East.

One 19-year-old fighter named Kareem, who said he fought alongside ISIS for more than a year, last year told CNN's Ivan Watson, "They gave us drugs, hallucinogenic pills that would make you go to battle not caring if you live or die."

He was a prisoner of Kurdish militants in northern Syria at the time, and CNN is unable to verify whether he was telling the truth.

But a U.S. official says it is believed that some jihadist fighters are using the drug Captagon, an amphetamine pill that can cause a surge of energy and a euphoric high.

"You can stay awake for days at a time. You don't have to sleep," said Dr. Robert Keisling, a psychiatrist at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. "It gives you a sense of well-being and euphoria. And you think that you're invincible and that nothing can harm you."

Analysts say the use of Captagon could help fighters last longer on the battlefield, and keep up their motivation.

"Al Qaeda in Iraq, which is ISIS' predecessor, was known for having fighters who would take amphetamines which would allow them to withstand the pain of being shot by bullets, for example," said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "It would make them more fearsome on the battlefield, and this seems to be very similar in principle."

In addition to reportedly taking the drug themselves, militants in Syria on both sides of the fighting may also be profiting from the production and trafficking of the pills, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. The head of the agency, Yury Fedotov, told a conference in June, "[Islamic State] and al Nusra Front are also believed to facilitate the smuggling of chemical precursors for the production of Captagon."

Pharmaceutical Captagon contained a synthetic stimulant called fenethylline. These days, narcotic manufacturers are producing counterfeit Captagon tablets, stamped with the Captagon logo, but containing amphetamine as well as other chemicals, the U.N. office says.

Matthew Levitt, a former Treasury Department official who tracked terrorist financing, said there is a good profit margin on Captagon, since it is not expensive to produce, and is in high demand, especially in Persian Gulf states.

"There has been in the past few years an increase in production in Syria and Lebanon," said Levitt, who is now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "There are reports that some of this has been used to finance some of the fighters, jihadi groups, in Syria."

The use of the drug by extremists could appear to be at odds with their ideology of Islamic purity, but Gartenstein-Ross says militants could still find a battlefield justification.

"They would say, number one, that this is a tool for fighting jihad, and that therefore it's acceptable," he said. "And secondly they would point out that the goal here is not to get high."

Captagon is a widely used stimulant throughout the Middle East, according to U.N. reports.

Just a few weeks ago, a member of Saudi Arabia's royal family was detained at the Beirut airport over an alleged attempt to smuggle drugs out of the country on a private plane, a security source told CNN.

According to the official National News Agency in Lebanon, the prince was among five Saudis arrested and accused of trying to transport two tons of Captagon pills onto a plane bound for Saudi Arabia.

The drug was originally developed in the 1960s to treat hyperactivity, but was banned in most countries in the 1980s. According to Dr. Keisling, it not only can be addictive, but it is so hallucinogenic that it can cause users to hear voices, or see things that are not there.

In spite of those drawbacks, he said, if militant groups are resorting to the use of Captagon, "I think they have made the decision that keeping these guys awake for four or five days at a time and giving them the sense of invincibility is worth whatever harm or side effects the drugs have."
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D

dripdripsplash

Member
US air force pilots have also been reported of taking them. They call them 'up and go pills' or something to that effect.

Also crediting the craziness of IS to some pills is incredibly lacking of any general idea about IS
 
F

FZZ

Banned
Yup expected this to be honest.

Didn't Japanese kamikaze pilots do the same?

If you drug up your soldiers they won't care if they live or die.
 
A

akira28

Member
I wonder if they shot up the meth. The one dude's room was full of syringes and he lived like a homeless person in his own bedroom.

The one Saudi Prince was caught with all those meth pills, and someone posted it was suspected he was routing them to ISIS. though you'd figure they could just use FedEX.
 
L

lenos16

Member
FZZpure said:
Yup expected this to be honest.

Didn't Japanese kamikaze pilots do the same?

If you drug up your soldiers they won't care if they live or die.
Click to expand...

German soldiers were also given a drug regimen. Over dependency on these drugs would lead to a bunch of mental problems right?
 
S

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
And more aspersions cast on rich Saudis funding this.

Which is the most important aspect of the story.
 
Demoskinos

Demoskinos

Member
That shit is like straight out of the plot of Max Payne and the Valkyr Drug. Goddamn that's scary that a drug like that actually exists.
 
S

Savitar

Member
History has shown many that would do harm take various substances, even nazi's were given pills that would enable them to march far longer and faster than they normally would. By the end Hitler himself was little more than a pathetic junkie.
 
C

curls

Wake up Sheeple, your boring insistence that Obama is not a lizardman from Atlantis is wearing on my patience 💤
Saudi Arabia again. When will the penny drop with the masses?
 
S

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
Demoskinos said:
That shit is like straight out of the plot of Max Payne and the Valkyr Drug. Goddamn that's scary that a drug like that actually exists.
Click to expand...

Um three Percocet and a five hour energy drink would get you halfway there. The more jarring issue here is the Saud family apparently smuggling that stuff.
 
B

brianmcdoogle

Member
mclem said:
Haze was distressingly prescient.
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No, it wasn't. When something comes out decades after previous practices, from Japanese to Germans to Americans and whatnot, you would not describe it as "prescient". It's, in fact, the exact opposite of "prescient".
 
F

FZZ

Banned
lenos16 said:
German soldiers were also given a drug regimen. Over dependency on these drugs would lead to a bunch of mental problems right?
Click to expand...

Yup. It also gets worse when you factor that some groups often mix drugs with other materials for a more intense high. But this gets them even more addicted to the drugs and makes withdrawals much worse. The brown brown some West African rebel groups use is an example.
 
N

NyMartin90

Member
Wasn't Gaddafi claiming this during the Arab Spring? I could've sworn he was saying that ISIS fighters were all on something.
 
A

akira28

Member
well it might explain why that one lady kept screaming "he's not my boyfriend." over and over. If she was fried out of her mind.

If they'd drug these people like the hashasins, that makes them pretty much impossible to reason with. They're true suicide tweakers, thats a scary thought.
 
K

Koojay

Member
Amjad said:
US air force pilots have also been reported of taking them. They call them 'up and go pills' or something to that effect.

Also crediting the craziness of IS to some pills is incredibly lacking of any general idea about IS
Click to expand...

Air Force pilots take Modafinil, which is nothing like captagon (or any amphetamines)
 
X

XenogearsX

Banned
Vice discovered this as well. They found cocaine in an ISIS commanders possession. It's ironic they claim to be the most devout of Muslims but they take drugs which is banned in Islam. More proof they are not Islamic in the least and only use Islam as a tool
 
F

Frozenprince

Banned
Well yeah. I mean a standard training and recruitment tactic in Al-Qaeda Madrassahs is to dope up a bunch of kids with more drugs than you can imagine to make them malleable and easy to use. I can't imagine ISIL is any different.

This isn't news.
 
D

DiipuSurotu

Banned
Frozenprince said:
Well yeah. I mean a standard training and recruitment tactic in Al-Qaeda Madrassahs is to dope up a bunch of kids with more drugs than you can imagine to make them malleable and easy to use. I can't imagine ISIL is any different.

This isn't news.
Click to expand...

The news part is Saudis are funding this.
 
L

LordDash

Banned
Well not surprising. Back home in Saudi Arabia, you can get bags of Captagon under 150 SR (about $40) and you can find them about anywhere. Especially in Jeddah.
 
HORRORSHØW

HORRORSHØW

Member
captagon sounds dope; i think i took something like that at the electric daisy carnivals. some mdma mixed with meth.

crank and ice are dirty highs, especially crank
 
T

TAJ

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Koojay said:
Air Force pilots take Modafinil, which is nothing like captagon (or any amphetamines)
Click to expand...

That's some good stuff. No high though.
 
S

Stereogatari

Banned
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/re...-----.aspx?pageID=238&nID=91446&NewsCatID=509

"Turkish police seized a huge shipment of amphetamine tablets near the border with Syria on the night of Nov. 19.

The operation seized a record amount of 1,800 kilograms of the drug Captagon in Hatay, Turkey’s southernmost province that borders northwest Syria. The seized shipment of 11 million tablets is thought to have been bound for the Gulf.

Captagon is the trademark name for synthetic stimulant fenethylline. It is widely used in the Middle East and is used by many fighters in Syria to stave off fatigue and fear.

The drug is also said to be manufactured and sold by the warring sides in Syria to fund the civil war. Prices vary but it has been reportedly sold for as much as $20 in cities such as Dubai.

The tablets were found by police in Hatay in two operations. Police first seized more than 7 million tablets produced in Syria, hidden among a shipment of oil filters bound for Gulf states, according to an official speaking to Anadolu Agency on condition of anonymity. Police later raided a depot in Hatay and discovered 3.6 million packaged tablets.

One Syrian and two Turks have been detained on suspicion of drug trafficking."
 
A

AP90

Member
Stinkles said:
Um three Percocet and a five hour energy drink would get you halfway there. The more jarring issue here is the Saud family apparently smuggling that stuff.
Click to expand...

This. I would assume it would be fairly easy to obtain it...so why would they try to sneak and smuggle it??
 
D

Duji

Member
Stinkles said:
Um three Percocet and a five hour energy drink would get you halfway there. The more jarring issue here is the Saud family apparently smuggling that stuff.
Click to expand...

Western countries boycotting the shit out of Saudi Arabia is so, so long overdue. Their not so thinly veiled support for terrorist groups, their multiple human rights violations, their racist tendencies... the list just goes on. It's a fucking shit hole of a country that also only abolished slavery in the fucking 1960s due to Western pressure. Pressure and boycotting actually works, and SA needs the full brunt of it to say the least.
 
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