The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime and the retreat of Iranian influence have disrupted the cross-border illicit networks in the Levant that generated a parallel economy worth billions of dollars. Yet illicit activity has not disappeared—not along the Syria-Lebanon border, not across the Syria-Jordan border, and not through the supply lines linking the Levant with distant markets. This raises a crucial question: how have these networks transformed under the new geopolitical conditions? How are illicit actors adapting to changing power balances, exploiting weak or fragmented state authority, and embedding themselves in wider transnational systems? And what does this tell us about the resilience of illicit economies, even after the political order that enabled them begins to collapse?

To address these questions, the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center will host a panel discussion on Tuesday, July 21, at 10:00 AM Beirut Time / 3:00 AM EDT. The panel will feature Mohanad Hage Ali, deputy director for research at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center; Caroline Rose, senior director at The Soufan Center; Karam Shaar, nonresident senior fellow at the Newlines Institute; and Armenak Tokmajyan, nonresident scholar at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center.

The event will be held in English and moderated by Rudayna Al-Baalbaky, communications manager at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center.

Viewers are invited to submit questions via the live chat feature on Facebook and YouTube.

For more information, please contact Najwa Yassine at najwa.yassine@carnegie-mec.org.