As if Hamas terrorists were not monstrous enough, their handlers gave them bags of Captagon – a synthetic, amphetamine-type stimulant known on the Arabic drug market as Abu al-Hilalain. Consumed like candy to endure in battle, it promotes feelings of rage, irritability, and impatience that encourage terrorists to murder and torture victims.
Known generically as fenethylline, it is trafficked through Turkey to the Middle East. According to authorities in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar, the use of fenethylline is prevalent among their younger, affluent citizens. Captagon, used in Saudi Arabia since the late 1980s, is one of the most popular drugs abused by young affluent populations in Arab countries, where students use it to stay awake before final exams, or women use it as an anorectic agent to lose weight.
Prof. Rami Yaka – head of Hebrew University Faculty of Medicine’s School of Pharmacy, who is a researcher on addiction – told the Magazine that amphetamines, as stimulants, are stronger and more potent than opiates. “Those who take them feel they are the king of the world, with no inhibitions. Opiates make users feel more euphoric and violent, but their motivation to do evil is less than that caused by amphetamines.”
Other notorious drug-fueled fighters
Hamas has already been compared to the Nazis in terms of their blood lust, but they also have narcotics in common: Yaka pointed out that Adolf Hitler regularly consumed a cocktail of amphetamines and opiates.
According to the WHYY website affiliated with PBS and NPR, Hitler’s operatives were also drugged: The Luftwaffe buzzed across Europe fueled by methamphetamine, while the Einsatzgruppen guzzled schnapps before and after mass killings.
Japanese kamikaze pilots on World War II suicide missions were high as well on the stimulant Philopon, a form of methamphetamine ingested via injection or pills, stamped with the emperor’s crest.
Child soldiers in Africa (aged under 18, with some sources citing as young as seven) are given an addictive mixture called brown-brown – cocaine and gunpowder – that is snorted.
Rounding out this depraved list, ISIS also employs Captagon as a stimulant.
Side effects and science
In small to moderate doses, Captagon raises blood pressure, body temperature, and breathing rate. Other side effects that have been experienced by regular users include blurred vision, dizziness, mouth dryness, breathing difficulties, irregular heartbeat, gastrointestinal symptoms, muscle and/or joint pain, muscle cramping, anxiety, mood swings, confusion, feelings of anger or rage, irritability, and impatience.
Over the long term, amphetamine use can have a number of side effects, including tiredness, depression, insomnia, toxicity to the heart and blood vessels, and malnutrition.
The US Department of Justice reports that the drug does not have an accepted medical use in that country and is not approved for distribution. As available stocks of diverted fenethylline are depleted and the availability of chemicals for the clandestine production of the drug fluctuates, increasing amounts of counterfeit Captagon will likely become available.
A study on the drug was published seven years ago by Greek toxicologists and forensic medicine specialists in the journal Basic & Clinical Pharmacology & Toxicology under the title “Fenethylline (Captagon) Abuse – Local Problems from an Old Drug Become Universal.”
Maria Katselou, Ioannis Papoutsis, Panagiota Nikolaou, Samir Qammaz, Chara Spiliopoulou, and Sotiris Athanaselis noted it had been used to treat hyperactivity disorders in children, narcolepsy (a neurological disorder disrupting the brain’s ability to control sleep-wake cycles, causing sufferers to feel very sleepy through much of the day), and depression. As Captagon, it has also been used as a drug of abuse and can be manufactured inexpensively in labs with raw materials that are sold legally.
Over the past years, a significant number of seizures of secret labs in several countries like Bulgaria, Slovenia Serbia-Montenegro, and Turkey have been reported by Interpol and International Narcotics Control Board. These laboratories varied in production capacity as far as the equipment and the produced quantity are concerned.
Many counterfeit Captagon tablets contain other amphetamine derivatives that are easier to produce but are pressed and stamped to look like Captagon pills. Some counterfeit pills that were analyzed did contain fenethylline, indicating that illicit production of this drug continues to take place. These illicit pills often contain a mix of amphetamines, caffeine, and various fillers.
In 1981, some 962,000 Captagon tablets ordered by a Lebanese employee of a Beirut company were seized by German authorities; they turned out to be counterfeit. Two years later, 400,000 counterfeit boxes of the drug, along with 4.5 million counterfeit Captagon tablets, were confiscated by German police before they were to be shipped to the Near East.
“It was used in Europe for over two decades as a milder alternative to amphetamine and related compounds and as a non-prescription psychostimulant and analeptic agent marketed under the brand name Captagon. The patent for its production was granted in 1962.”
It was also used in lack of drive, especially in elderly patients suffering from Parkinson’s and other organic diseases – but these indications for fenethylline were never approved in the US, as no investigational new drug application was submitted to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
ALTHOUGH ILLEGAL, it continues to be available among terrorist groups, especially in Syria, which holds a strategic position at a crossroads in the Middle East and was traditionally the major producer, exporter, and consumer of amphetamines, including Captagon.
In May 2021, Britain’s The Guardian described the effects of Captagon production in Syria on the economy as a “dirty business that is creating a near-narco state. Drug money flowing into Syria is destabilizing legitimate businesses, positioning it as the global center of Captagon production, with increased industrialization, adaptation, and technical sophistication.”
Despite the fact that fenethylline was officially banned in Jordan in 1988 and is no longer clinically used, an increase in the number of Captagon abusers has been reported. The trafficking and use of the drug were also detected in North Africa a decade ago.
The drug is popular among terrorist handlers and their murderous teams that need to fight for extended periods of time on little sleep without fatigue and without a significant decrease in alertness or performance. Thus it helps terrorists fight longer and harder with less concern for their own health and well-being while resisting or ignoring higher levels of pain, the researchers wrote.
It is also believed to be used by Islamic State terrorists alone or along with other hallucinogenic pills to boost their fervor and go to battle without caring whether they live or die.
A drug control officer in the central city of Homs in western Syria describes fighters’ behavior under the influence of Captagon: “We would beat them, and they wouldn’t feel the pain. Many of them would laugh while we were dealing them heavy blows.”
Captagon became infamous eight years ago when it was discovered to be used by ISIS fighters to suppress fear prior to carrying out terrorist operations. As the influence of terrorist organizations like ISIS declined, Syria and Lebanon took over and began producing and distributing the drug on a large scale.
Most Israelis first heard about it a few days ago, when Channel 12 TV’s Nir Dvori reported that Captagon pills were recovered from the pockets of dead Hamas terrorists who carried out the October 7 surprise incursion. Gaza, he noted, has become a popular market for the drug, especially among addicted youths.