IAEA to remove nuclear material from secret Syrian site after US brokers deal with Israel

The International Atomic Energy Agency is preparing to extract nuclear material from a covert site in Syria. The site in question is Al Kibar, a location in eastern Syria that has been at the center of international nonproliferation concerns for nearly two decades.

A reactor, an airstrike, and years of denial

Al Kibar first entered the global spotlight in September 2007, when Israeli jets destroyed what Western intelligence agencies assessed was a clandestine nuclear reactor. The facility was believed to have been constructed with North Korean assistance.

When inspectors first visited the bombed-out site in June 2008, they discovered uranium particles consistent with nuclear fuel processing. That finding directly contradicted Damascus’s insistence that the facility had nothing to do with a weapons program. In 2011, the agency concluded that the destroyed building was very likely a nuclear reactor, which led to a referral to the UN Security Council.

Regime change opens the door

The fall of the Assad government in December 2024 reshuffled the deck. That shift culminated in a June 2025 meeting between IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi and Syria’s transitional President Ahmed al-Sharaa. The two reached an agreement granting the agency access to four critical sites, including Al Kibar, to investigate Syria’s past nuclear activities.

Environmental sampling conducted between 2024 and 2025 revealed significant numbers of anthropogenic natural uranium particles at locations linked to the Al Kibar reactor, corroborating what intelligence agencies had long suspected about the scope of Syria’s nuclear ambitions.

What comes next for Syria’s nuclear file

The IAEA has indicated that further verification work at Al Kibar is planned as soon as conditions permit, with the broader goal of resolving the safeguards file at the Board of Governors level, as stated in June 2026. Closing that file would require Syria to provide a complete accounting of its past nuclear activities, something no Syrian government has ever done.

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