Captagon connection: How Syria became a narco state

The captagon trade cuts across all sides in the Syrian civil war, with the drug now the country's biggest export.

BEKAA VALLEY, Lebanon: A decade of appalling civil war has left Syria fragmented and in ruins but one thing crosses every front line: a drug called 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.