Lebanon arrests citizen under US sanctions for alleged drug dealing

The Lebanese army on Thursday detained Noah Zaitar, a Lebanese national wanted over alleged drug trafficking, two years after he was sanctioned by the United States over suspected links to narcotics rings in Syria.

Three Lebanese security sources told Reuters that troops arrested Zaitar earlier on Thursday, after years of arrest warrants they said he managed to evade. The Lebanese army said in a statement that it had detained a man with the initials "N.Z." in the eastern Bekaa region, near Zaitar's hometown.

The arrest comes a day after two Lebanese soldiers were killed in clashes in the Bekaa in pursuit of fugitives suspected of drug trafficking, the army said on X.

It said those raids resulted in the death of one wanted individual and the confiscation of large stocks of drugs and arms, but that it would continue to pursue other fugitives.

In a 2016 interview with Lebanese TV outlet Al-Jadeed, Zaitar admitted that he grew and sold cannabis but denied he led a drug mafia. He joked that if Lebanese politicians smoked marijuana, they could resolve the country's political paralysis.

In 2023, the U.S. Treasury described Zaitar as "a known arms dealer and drug smuggler" with ties to Lebanese armed group Hezbollah and the forces of then-Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

Assad was toppled by a lightning rebel offensive in December 2024, and Hezbollah was left badly weakened by a war with Israel last year.

A ceasefire was meant to end that war but Israel has continued to carry out airstrikes in Lebanon, accusing Hezbollah of working to re-establish its military capabilities.

Both Israel and the U.S. are exerting mounting pressure on Lebanon to take more assertive action against Hezbollah, including by cutting off its financing flows.