Jordan carried out rare air strikes on southern Syria on Monday, hitting a Iran-linked drugs factory and killing a smuggler allegedly behind big hauls across the two countries' border, local and intelligence sources said.
The sources said one strike hit an abandoned drug facility in Syria's southern Deraa province linked to the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, which is allied to Syria's government.
Another strike on the village of Shaab, in the adjacent province of Sweida near the Jordanian border, killed Syrian drug kingpin Marie al-Ramthan and his family while they were at home.
"Both Ramthan's home and the facility were left in ruins," said Ryan Marouf, a Syrian researcher tracking the drug trade.
The drugs factory in the Deraa town of Kharab al Shahem was believed to have been a meeting point for Hezbollah-paid smugglers, Marouf said, corroborating accounts by local sources familiar with the matter.
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