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The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on September 1 that it has closed the book on its long-running investigation into Syria’s covert nuclear activities under former President Bashar Assad, crediting the country’s new Islamist-led government with cooperating fully with inspectors after they uncovered a secret site holding 73 metric tons of natural uranium.
The findings were laid out in a classified report, excerpts of which were published by both The Associated Press and Reuters.
According to those excerpts, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi led a senior inspection team to a previously undisclosed site whose existence Syria revealed to the agency only in July. There, inspectors found 73 metric tons of natural, unenriched uranium metal, including 55 metric tons in the form of clad fuel rods.
“All of this nuclear material is now under agency containment and surveillance measures,” the report said.
The report did not explicitly identify the site, but it may correspond to a facility reported last month by Axios and known as “Site 99.”
According to that earlier report, the site was originally developed as part of the Assad regime’s covert nuclear program and stored nuclear material connected to the reactor project at al-Kibar — the facility Israel bombed in 2007.
Axios reported that, with mediation from the United States, an agreement had been reached to remove the nuclear material from the site amid Israeli concern over Syria’s continued possession of it. But days later, Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani said the material would remain under Damascus’ control for “peaceful purposes.”
“Syria has the right to use the material for civilian purposes,” al-Shaibani said.
A U.S. official told Axios last month that the material at the site included “yellowcake,” a uranium powder that can later be processed and enriched as part of the nuclear fuel cycle.
While the material cannot be used directly to build a nuclear weapon, the official said it could be used to make a “dirty bomb” — a conventional explosive device that disperses radioactive material to contaminate an area, rather than producing a nuclear explosion.
Israeli officials said the Israel Defense Forces bombed the entrances to the site shortly after Assad’s fall in late 2024 to prevent access to it. One official said Jerusalem had made clear to the Trump administration that it would not agree to the nuclear material remaining at the site.
The IAEA’s latest report said Syria informed the agency of the new site in a July 17 letter, inviting it “to cooperate with the Syrian authorities on safeguards and verification activities at the site and with respect to any nuclear material that may be present there.”
In the report, the agency also said it had closed its investigation into the nuclear program operated during the Assad era, confirming what had long been suspected: that the al-Kibar facility struck by Israel in 2007 was a nuclear reactor.
The agency said the finding was verified during an August 28 visit by an IAEA team to the site, which the Assad regime had deliberately demolished after the Israeli strike. Inspectors reviewing excavation progress at the site uncovered “cooling infrastructure consistent with that of a nuclear reactor,” the report said.
The IAEA credited the government of President Ahmed al-Sharaa for its “transparency and cooperation,” saying it had helped the agency clarify past activities and identify nuclear materials that remained in the country.
“The agency, having received from Syria the necessary information and access, was able to clarify and resolve the agency’s questions concerning outstanding safeguards issues previously reported to the Board of Governors,” the report said.
The al-Kibar reactor was a gas-cooled, graphite-moderated facility modeled closely on North Korea’s Yongbyon reactor and built with North Korean technical assistance, according to longstanding intelligence assessments and the IAEA’s own observations of the site’s cooling infrastructure.
Designed to produce plutonium rather than to generate electricity, the reactor had no turbine or generator equipment; it was built to dump waste heat into the Euphrates River through a system of heat exchangers. It was engineered to run on natural uranium metal fuel — precisely the type of material inspectors found stockpiled at the newly disclosed site — moderated by graphite and cooled by carbon dioxide gas, with an estimated thermal output of 20 to 25 megawatts.
At full power, such a reactor would have been capable of producing enough plutonium for roughly one nuclear weapon every one to two years.
While it remains unclear whether Syria ever sought nuclear weapons, the new government is using the issue to bolster its legitimacy. By cooperating fully with the IAEA — and possibly relinquishing national assets — Damascus is primarily seeking to appease both the United States and Israel.
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