The Hunt is On for Syria's Weapons of Mass Destruction

When you hear the phrase covert nuclear weapons program what country first comes to mind we're guessing it's iran or north korea or maybe if you're a geopolitical hipster libya chances are that syria doesn't top your list or at least it wouldn't have until last week that was when the international atomic energy agency revealed an assad era program that was

More advanced than anyone had suspected more importantly it's still an open question whether all the material it produced has been accounted for unfortunately nuclear material isn't the only hand-me-down the post-assad syria has to worry about significant quantities of the old regime's chemical weapons program are still believed to be scattered around the

Country but unlike the nuclear side of things nobody knows where they are or how much there is or even what kind of chemical weapons are buried out there in the desert between the two the country is something of an open-air wmd museum and while the government is racing to clean up assad's holdovers the risk is increasingly becoming that they might not be the

First to come into the world of nuclear weapons they might not be the first to come into the world of nuclear weapons they might not be the first to come into the world of nuclear weapons they might not be the first to come into the world of nuclear weapons they might not be the first to come into the world of nuclear weapons they might not be the first to

Come into the world of nuclear weapons they might not be the first to come into the world of nuclear weapons first to find them first to find them first to find them under the radar for a long time the words under the radar for a long time the words under the radar for a long time the words syria and weapons of mass destruction meant syria and weapons of

Mass destruction meant syria and weapons of mass destruction meant one thing chemical weapons damascus got one thing chemical weapons damascus got one thing chemical weapons damascus got his hands on egyptian mustard gas all his hands on egyptian mustard gas all his hands on egyptian mustard gas all the way back in 1972 really ramped up the way back in 1972

Really ramped up the way back in 1972 really ramped up production of domestically made weapons production of domestically made weapons production of domestically made weapons throughout the 1980s and ultimately throughout the 1980s and ultimately throughout the 1980s and ultimately culminated in the use of sarin and other culminated in the use of sarin and

Other culminated in the use of sarin and other agents against civilians during the agents against civilians during the agents against civilians during the civil war as of last month though that civil war as of last month though that civil war as of last month though that focus appears to have been a bit focus appears to have been a bit focus appears to have

Been a bit misplaced in august axios reported that misplaced in august axios reported that misplaced in august axios reported that washington had broken an agreement washington had broken an agreement washington had broken an agreement between the international atomic energy between the international atomic energy between the international atomic energy

Agency and the new government in agency and the new government in agency and the new government in damascus to remove remaining nuclear agency and the new government in damascus to remove remaining nuclear agency and the new government in damascus to remove remaining nuclear material from a clandestine syrian material from a clandestine syrian material from

A clandestine syrian site tied to the country's old nuclear site tied to the country's old nuclear site tied to the country's old nuclear program that headline of course raised program that headline of course raised program that headline of course raised the question of the question of the question of nuclear material in syria really nuclear material in

Syria really nuclear material in syria really it wasn't exactly a secret that syria it wasn't exactly a secret that syria it wasn't exactly a secret that syria had been trying to build a nuclear had been trying to build a nuclear had been trying to build a nuclear program with the help of some north program with the help of some north korean engineers

Damascus was able to build the al-kabar reactor near dar al-zur only for israel to destroy the thing before it ever went live initially the understanding was pretty straightforward syria's sole reactor got blown up marking the end of their nuclear ambitions that started to get more complicated when iaea inspectors were actually let into the facility or

Whatever was left of it they found particles of chemically processed natural uranium meaning that it already had undergone some part of the nuclear fuel cycle damascus had never declared any uranium at the site at all and after a less than unique attempt to deflect responsibility by blaming the impact of israel's bombs it was pretty clear that the syrian

Government had been up to something by 2011 the iaea declared that al-kabar had very likely been an undeclared nuclear reactor that was built for the development of nuclear weapons and formally found syria to be in non-compliance on the matter still the chemical weapons program was what dominated detention in the years to come the civil war broke out just at

The time it was found to be in non-compliance and it didn't take that long for the iaea forces to use sarin gas against rebel-held territories the investigation only really got going again after the fall of the assad regime and then on july the 17th the new government in damascus dropped a proverbial bombshell it had identified another previously undeclared

Location that might contain nuclear material and invited inspectors in what we have to imagine that the inspectors were expecting to find more than assad would have ever admitted they were blown away by what awaited them at this new site the iaea discovered roughly 73 nuclear weapons metric tons of natural uranium metal about 55 tons of it was already

Fabricated into fuel rods equating to more than 8 800 of them for context the reactor at al-kabar would have needed an estimated 8 000 fuel rods to fill its core so while the destruction of the reactor by israel was lights out for damascus's nuclear aspirations it shows that syria was far closer to a serious nuclear program than had previously been imagined

Despite the initial reporting that this material was to be removed from syria entirely that's not what's gone down on the ground at least not yet damascus has decided to keep the uranium inside the country under tight lock and key arguing that it has the right to use it for peaceful nuclear purposes the compromise reached with the iaea is that the entire

Stockpile is now under the agency's surveillance meaning inspectors are monitoring it inside the country rather than just taking shara's word for it and now we want to be careful here syria is not six weeks away from developing a nuclear weapon or anything like that all of what they possess is natural uranium which is leagues away from weapons grade and even

Getting this stockpile to the point where it could be useful for nuclear energy alone would take years if not a decade but regardless of where they ultimately go with this it's still kind of wild that damascus was able to sit on this for so long what's more it's only half of assad's wmd aspirations missing in action if the situation with syria's nuclear

Program is concerning it is at least a story about what might have happened a glimpse into a parallel timeline in which got oh so real the chemical weapons program on the other hand is a problem that very much still exists significant parts of assad's old stockpiles believed to remain somewhere inside the country with nobody quite sure where in order to

Understand just how you could lose a chemical weapons program though we have to step back a moment to the period when damascus was under international pressure to hand over those stockpiles and what stockpiles these were syria had a huge amount of sarin mustard and vx gases and a sophisticated network of dozens if not hundreds of facilities variously

Involved with production mixing and storage the exact figures are still impossible to fully pin down but western intelligence agencies long believed that syria possessed well over a thousand tons of chemical agents and precursors backed up by aircraft artillery rockets and ballistic missiles that could act as the delivery method exactly what all of this

Means can be seen just by looking at some of the darkest days of the civil war in august 2013 a sarin gas attack on the opposition-held suburb of guta killed an estimated 1400 or so people and crossed the so-called red line that president barack obama had publicly drawn the year before putting washington under enormous pressure to respond the problem was

That when the red line was crossed the collective west responded by doing nothing rather than authorized strikes obama took the request to a divided congress where its passage became uncertain meanwhile britain's parliament voted down a plan to get involved eventually only france remained willing to act and then only if either america or the brits came on

Board sadly neither did of course this all needs to be seen in the context of the era the west had just finished its third major middle east intervention and afghanistan iraq and now libya were all looking decidedly unsuccessful still the failure to enforce its own red lines would soon have massive consequences for the united states in syria russia soon

Stabbed in with an alternative offer rather than the west bombed syria washington would let moscow oversee the removal and destruction of damascus's chemical weapons for the kremlin it was a perfect opportunity to shield an ally while also getting some extra brownie points by presenting itself as a responsible global power on the surface at least the project

Seemed as though it made progress there was a considerable amount of chemical weapon material that was either destroyed in syria or transported out of the country entirely at least 1300 metric tons of it but i mean come on this is russia and assadi or assyria we're talking about here two nations that treat the mass murder of civilians basically like sport

Almost immediately the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons began finding holes in what syria was swearing was the entirety of its stockpile damascus would actually go on to revise its list of declared sites 20 separate times which gets to the heart of the issue inspectors could only verify and destroy what the regime itself admitted to

Having in the first place so when the mission officially wrapped up in the summer of 2014 it was clear that there was still a lot left over that had simply never been declared and it's not like assad even tried to hide this fact chemical attacks continued across the country including with sarin once again making an appearance at khan shaykhun in 2017.

Chlorine attacks meanwhile became something of a standard operating procedure by the time assad fell there were no fewer than 222 and perhaps as many as 336 reported chemical attacks in syria since the civil war kicked off and while the tulsi gabbards of the world tried to insist that they would not use chemical weapons against the people of the world tried

To insist that they were false flags staged by the rebels no one seriously doubted who was behind them all today nobody is sure quite how much of assad's chemical weapons stockpile remains but nobody really disputes that there's still some stuff out there and because damascus built this stuff to last it's not something that will just degrade into junk as

Time goes by a lot of the regime's nerve agents like sarin and vx were even kept as separate precursor chemicals rather than as the finished gas which dramatically extends their shelf lives so long as they're stored properly some of the precursors can last for decades that's a serious problem for the new government because it now means that there are likely

Really deadly compounds scattered all over syria and finding them before some rogue actor gets there first is becoming increasingly urgent a needle in a haystack to the credit of the new government in damascus they have begun searching for what's left of the chemical weapon stash back in march they launched what they're calling the breath of free freedom

Force which is essentially an international cleanup crew for assad's wmds the united states along with france the uk turkey and a whole host of other countries are working with syria and the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons or opcw so far they have been able to pull up some good results back in may a nine-person opcw team went into a

Collection of high priority sites in hamar homs and latakia and found previously undeclared chemical weapons among them were dozens of munitions that included the same types of aerial bombs used in the regime's previous sarin attacks they also unearthed separately stored chemicals equipment tied to the production process and thousands of pages of

Documentation syria is now in the process of formally declaring and destroying what it found which is genuine progress but the issue here is just how compartmentalized syria's program was in terms of both production and storage unlike the nucleoside which had one big reactor the chemical side of things was set up not to be found accordingly it operated on

One of the strict strictest need to know bases imaginable where the production side of the equation not only didn't know much about where the other production sites were they had zero knowledge of where stuff went once it left their lab that would be bad enough if it pertained to a few dozen black sites but it's likely far worse than that the opcw now

Considers more than a hundred locations across syria as either relevant or potentially relevant to the old chemical weapons program and while some of the potentially relevant places are doubtless going to come up empty many others will still be holding these highly dangerous agents so inspectors are continuing their work as we speak but the process has been

Glacial since march 2025 inspectors were only able to visit and fully inspect 20 sites which is better than zero but nowhere near as good as we'd like it to be some of this is excusable part of the problem has been security related which remains a concern depending on where in the country you are back in march this year inspectors had to briefly pull out

From the entire country after credible threats were made against the team the more immediate concern though is what would happen if one of these storage facilities wound up being found by the wrong people while the shara government has made strides to unify the country they've been losing ground in sueda and still don't have anywhere close to the control

That they'd like over the coastal region we've already seen regime era weapons depots get looted since assad's fall so this is hardly an unwarranted concern and it isn't necessarily just jihadist groups that would be interested in beating the inspectors to whatever sites do remain while the system was decentralized there were nevertheless some guys at the

Top who knew what went where many of them have since led the country or gone into hiding but the opcw has made finding the ones who remain in the country priority one last year the organization gave damascus a list of 23 former program personnel that they wanted to interview on the whereabouts of the program shara's government for its part replied by saying

That 11 of them were available with the other 12 presumably having fled it's unclear at the time of recording who on the list has actually been interviewed but there are indications that several weeks from assad's day are still in the country and would presumably be the easiest to sit down with perhaps the biggest get of them all on this program would be ama

Al-amazani who ran syria's main weapons research organization for years and apparently stayed in damascus after the regime's collapse separately basam al-hassan was oh one of assad's top advisers had served as a main link between the president and the weapons program if anything al-hassan might be the most likely to have intel on the whereabouts of these

Systems and while he did flee the country to lebanon next door he has talked to u.s intelligence agents though we can't independently confirm where the chemical weapons came up still the fact that he fled and still was able to be interviewed means that the list of 11 that damascus says are available for questioning aren't the only ones out there willing to

Talk regardless of who has and who has not talked yet though this cleanup project is still very much in its early days and until inspectors finish the process there's an untold number of facilities out there in the desert stashing some of the most lethal nerve agents on earth just waiting for someone to uncover them thank you for watching