From: Financial Times
Erika Solomon in Beirut
They used to sneak in weapons and blackmarket oil. But now eastern Syria’s smugglers are seeking profit from a new illicit product: cigarettes.
***
“Now, they make most of their money from cigarettes. Many of these smugglers themselves pledged allegiance to Isis, perhaps to build some kind of relationship with them,” says a businessman from the eastern city of Mayadeen who called himself Kareem.
Some smugglers pay off Isis checkpoints, others are helped by co-operative smokers in the jihadi ranks in exchange for a steady supply of cigarettes. Isis sometimes asks people it knows are smokers to spy for their morality police, known as the Hisba.
