Syria: Failed state or narco-state? - a podcast by BBC World Service

How ten years of conflict have destroyed the country's economy. As Syria prepares for largely symbolic elections to re-elect its President Bashar Al-Assad next week, we look at how ten years of conflict have destroyed the country's economy. Ed Butler looks at the growing evidence that Syria's government is now building its income around a multi-billion dollar trade in narcotics. He speaks to Syrian economist Jihad Yazigi, editor in chief of the online publication The Syria Report, Martin Chulov, The Guardian newspapers' Middle East editor and to Elizabeth Tsurkov, a fellow at the New Lines institute in Washington specialising in the Levant. (Picture credit: A member of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) walks through the debris in the old city centre on the eastern frontline of Raqa on September 25, 2017)

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