Iraqi lawmaker warns of narcotics infiltration in schools, calls for national response

BAGHDAD — Member of Parliament Youssef Al-Kilabi warned this week of what he described as a coordinated effort to flood Iraqi schools and universities with narcotics, alleging involvement by international intelligence agencies and political protection within the country.

“There is political protection and connections with international intelligence to protect drugs in Iraq,” Al-Kilabi said in an interview with Dijlah TV.

He called for the creation of a specialized counter-narcotics agency modeled on Iraq’s counterterrorism forces and urged a national response similar to the mobilization against the Islamic State group in 2014.

“We need a fatwa, a popular mobilization, and a 2014-style campaign to combat drugs,” he said.

Al-Kilabi’s remarks come amid growing concern over the spread of narcotics across Iraq. The Ministry of Interior recently announced the seizure of more than a ton of captagon pills smuggled from Syria via Turkey.

In 2023 alone, authorities arrested more than 19,000 people for drug-related offenses, seized over 15 tons of psychotropic substances, and reported the deaths of at least 17 suspects in armed confrontations with security forces.

By August 2024, the ministry had issued 140 death sentences and 500 life sentences in connection with drug crimes.

Excerpts from Al-Kilabi’s interview with Dijlah TV:

We need to establish a counter-narcotics agency like the counter-terrorism agency.

There is political protection and connections with international intelligence to protect drugs in Iraq.

The drug issue aims to destroy the religious authority’s fatwa by targeting societal structures.

International intelligence is targeting the distribution of drugs in Iraq’s universities and schools, and parties want to strike Shiite families, youth, and women through the drug issue.

Some parties are offering large discounts to drug distributors among university and school students.

We need a fatwa [religious decree], a popular mobilization, and a 2014-style campaign to combat drugs.

The Assad regime was managing the process of bringing drugs into Iraq.

The drug issue is a thousand times worse than terrorism—morally.