TO GO WITH AFP STORY BY JEAN MARC MOJON AND ROUBA EL HUSSEINI
Fighters affiliated with Syria's "Hayat Tahrir al-Sham" (HTS) rebel-group display drugs previously seized at a checkpoint they control in Daret Ezza, in the western countryside of the northern Aleppo province, on April 10, 2022. - A decade of appalling civil war has left Syria fragmented and in ruins but one thing crosses every frontline: the drug fenethylline, commercially known as captagon. The stimulant -- once notorious for its association with Islamic State fighters -- has spawned an illegal $10-billion industry that not only props up the pariah regime of President Bashar al-Assad, but many of his enemies. (Photo by OMAR HAJ KADOUR / AFP)