Abou Ali’s business is flourishing. A hundred meters behind his two-story house in the Bekaa Valley lies a field of red-brown, crumbly earth. He has just planted the season’s crop. “You know the red soil is what gives our most famous hashish its name: Red Lebanese.”
Outside sits a black SUV with blacked-out windows and no license plates. Abou Ali, who did not want to give his full name, is 52 years old with cropped, gray hair, his T-shirt stretched over his bulging stomach. There is a handgun tucked into the waistband of his jeans.