IAEA confirms Syria hid tons of nuclear material under Assad regime

The IAEA has officially confirmed that the ousted regime of former Syrian President Bashar Assad concealed several tons of nuclear material at secret locations. Syria's new government said it intends to keep the material in the country under IAEA safeguards.

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi held a joint press conference with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani in Damascus on Tuesday (local time), announcing that inspectors had found "several tons of nuclear material" hidden since the era of the former regime, according to Reuters and AFP.

"Thanks to the courageous decision of Syria's new government to inform us that there were additional locations where nuclear material was stored, we were able to access and inspect those sites," Grossi said. "We are talking about several tons of nuclear material that could have been misused."

Al-Shaibani, speaking at the same press conference, said Syria would retain custody of the discovered material, stressing that "Syria has the right to use this material for civilian and peaceful purposes."

He said Syria had voluntarily disclosed the existence of the material to the IAEA in a formal letter sent July 17, informing the agency that nuclear material was present at undeclared facilities left behind by the previous regime.

"Technical assessments have confirmed that these materials do not pose a danger," al-Shaibani added. "The material will be placed under IAEA safeguards and remain under Syrian national custody."

Grossi echoed that assurance, saying the material "will be transparently identified and managed within the international safeguards framework."

The nuclear material Syria's transitional government has pledged to store safely is believed to include uranium ore concentrate known as yellowcake, which the Assad regime had hidden at a covert facility called Site 99. Yellowcake is produced during the uranium refining process and requires further conversion and enrichment before it can be used as nuclear fuel.

The Assad regime had built the Al-Kibar reactor in the eastern Deir ez-Zor province with North Korean support. When Israel destroyed the reactor in a surprise airstrike in 2007, the remaining radioactive materials and research and development equipment were secretly moved to Site 99.

While the yellowcake stored there cannot be used directly in a fission weapon, it has long been considered a major source of regional instability because it could be combined with conventional explosives to create a so-called dirty bomb — a device designed to spread radioactive contamination across a wide area.

In a report last year, the IAEA said inspectors had found uranium particles at the facility during a 2024 inspection.

Grossi also visited the Deir ez-Zor site during his trip — a location that had been closed for 18 years. "We visited the Deir ez-Zor site, where very comprehensive excavation and exploration work is currently under way," he said. "This is very important because it corroborates the IAEA's long-standing assessment that a clandestine nuclear facility was being built there."

Syria is not believed to hold an operational stockpile of nuclear material at a level that could be diverted for use in a weapons program, Reuters reported.

Syria's transitional government, which came to power after Assad was ousted by rebel forces in late 2024, has been actively cooperating with the IAEA in a bid to shed its international isolation, pledging to transparently address the nuclear legacy left behind by decades of Assad family rule.