An estimated 10 civilians have been killed in airstrikes on the neighboring towns of Arman and Malh in Syria's southeastern Sweida province, according to local media.
Jordanian forces are believed to be behind Thursday's attacks, although their government has not yet confirmed any involvement.
Sweida 24, a news platform based in the city of the same name, said fighter jets carried out simultaneous attacks on residential neighborhoods after midnight local time (2100 GMT).
The attack in Malh caused material damage to some homes. However, the second attack in Arman demolished two houses and killed at least 10 civilians, including four women and two girls, both under five years old.
Jordan is believed to have carried out previous incursions into Syria, mainly near the countries' shared border, in an effort to disrupt arms and drug smuggling operations.
But residents of the cities attacked on Thursday questioned the choice of targets.
“What happened was a massacre against children and women,” Arman resident Murad al-Abdullah told Al Jazeera. “The airstrikes that targeted villages are far from being identified as a fight against drug traffickers.”
Al-Abdullah said the bombing was not limited to homes of people suspected of being involved in drug trafficking. He noted that other houses were also damaged, terrifying villagers in their sleep and causing unnecessary civilian deaths.
“It is unreasonable for two girls no older than five to be involved in drug trafficking,” al-Abdullah said.
Tribes and residents of villages near the Jordanian border issued separate statements this week denying any involvement in drug smuggling.
The statements also pledged to lend a hand to Jordan in eliminating criminal networks that traffic narcotics and other drugs across the border. In turn, they asked Jordan to suspend its bombings against civilian sites.
The spiritual leader of the Druze religious group in Syria, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hajri, called on Jordan to prevent further bloodshed among civilians.
“Attacks should focus exclusively on smugglers and their supporters,” al-Hajri said in a public statement.
Al-Abdullah, a resident of Arman, also called on Jordan to collaborate with Syrian locals to stop the trafficking operations.
“We are a society that does not accept drug manufacturing or trading, and the Jordanian government should have reached out to our elders to cooperate in the fight against drug traffickers, instead of bombing residential neighborhoods,” al-Abdullah said.
Alleged attacks targeting drug trafficking operations
Thursday's attack is believed to be the third time this year that Jordanian jets have carried out airstrikes on Syrian territory.
A previous attack occurred on January 9, killing three people in rural Sweida, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based rights monitor.
The Observatory said five smugglers were also killed in a border attack on January 7. Fighting that day occurred sporadically for 10 hours.
By the end of the raid, Jordanian forces had arrested 15 suspects. They also claimed to have recovered 627,000 Captagon pills, an illicitly manufactured amphetamine, and 3.4kg of cannabis.
“What Jordan is doing can certainly slow down drug trafficking operations, but unfortunately it cannot stop them completely. The border with Syria is 375 kilometers (233 miles) long and smuggling operations are carried out by professional groups, not random individuals carrying bags of drugs across the border,” said Essam al-Zoubi, a lawyer and activist from human rights.
Drug control officials in the United States and other Western countries have said war-torn Syria has become a major hub in the Middle East for drug trafficking.
The country, for example, has become the main manufacturer of Captagon, a multi-billion dollar company. Experts have said smugglers are using Jordan as a route through which Syrian drugs can reach oil-rich Gulf states.
Al-Zoubi and other human rights advocates have warned that the Syrian government itself is involved in drug trafficking, in an effort to shore up its war-depleted finances.
Reports indicated that the Syrian Army's Fourth Armored Division has played a role in overseeing the country's counter-drug operations, alongside the Iranian-backed armed group Hezbollah, an ally of the Syrian government.
“The officials responsible for drug smuggling into Syria are Lebanon's Hezbollah, the Fourth Division and the Syrian regime's security apparatuses controlling southern Syria,” al-Zoubi said.
Jordan and its allies have also taken other approaches to stopping drug trafficking.
In March of last year, for example, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on six people, including two relatives of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, for their role in the production and trafficking of Captagon. Some of those sanctioned also had ties to Hezbollah.
But al-Zoubi warns that even targeted attacks on Syrian drug traffickers will not be enough to stop trafficking.
“Hezbollah or Fourth Division anti-drug officials do not care if traffickers are killed, as the trade itself will continue regardless of the people,” al-Zoubi said, pointing to an example that occurred in May 2023.
At the time, Jordanian planes had carried out airstrikes in the Sweida countryside, targeting the home of one of Syria's most famous drug traffickers, Marai al-Ramthan. He eventually died in the attack.
But, al-Zoubi said, his death “did not limit drug trafficking but, in fact, increased it.” Other smugglers took his disappearance as an opportunity to expand their trade in his absence.
Omar Idlibi, director of the Doha office of the Harmoon Center for Contemporary Studies, said geopolitical turmoil in the region has also allowed trafficking to flourish.
“Drug smuggling operations into Jordan did not exist before 2018, that is, before the Syrian regime and its Iranian allies regained control of southern Syria from opposition factions,” he told Al Jazeera.
Idlibi explained that the launch of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has had a direct effect on the expansion of counter-drug operations.
While focusing on Ukraine, Russia withdrew some of its troops in Syria, allowing Iranian militias and Hezbollah forces to spread. Those groups then converted some of the Syrian army headquarters into logistics centers for manufacturing, transporting and smuggling drugs into Jordan.
Russia's need for military equipment from Iran also led it to turn a blind eye to drug smuggling activity in Syria, Idlibi explained.
“Everyone knows that the Syrian regime and Iran are behind the terrorist activity on the Syrian-Jordanian border and unless it is stopped at its source, it will continue at different rates,” Idlibi said.
