BAGHDAD: Iraqi security forces on Monday announced the seizure of nearly a million captagon pills in the possession of a "foreign trafficker", as the country grapples with the ballooning drug trade. Authorities in Iraq - a key conduit for the amphetamine-type drug - regularly announce such operations in which large hauls of captagon are seized, often coming from Syria with which it shares 600-kilometre (370 miles) porous border.

National security forces in Baghdad arrested "a foreign narcotics trafficker" and seized large quantities of the drug hidden in a truck that he was "planning to drive to a northern province", according to a statement. The statement did not specify the suspect's nationality. On July 16, the interior ministry reported the discovery of a rare captagon manufacturing lab in the country's south.

It was the first such announcement of its kind in a country where drug consumption had spiraled in recent years but where production remains virtually nonexistent. Days earlier, the authorities had announced the dismantling of an "international drug trafficking network" and the arrest of three of its members.

They seized during the operation two million captagon pills in the southern province of Muthanna on the border with Saudi Arabia. Governments in the region have recently upped efforts to crack down on trafficking after oil-rich Gulf states - the key target markets for captagon - expressed their displeasure over the trade.- AFP