The IAEA claims to have found traces of uranium in Syria related to a building in the province of Deir ez-Zor, which Israel destroyed in 2007, the Reuters news agency reports, citing an IAEA report.
“The UN nuclear watchdog found traces of uranium in Syria during its investigation into a building destroyed by Israel in 2007, which the agency believes was probably an undeclared nuclear reactor,” the agency reports.
In 2018, Israel declassified information that in September 2007, its aircraft bombed a nuclear reactor in the Syrian province of Deir ez-Zor, which was in the final stages of construction.
As noted, thanks to new efforts in 2024, the IAEA was able to take environmental samples in three unnamed locations that are “presumably functionally related” to Deir ez-Zor.
The report claims that the Agency found “a significant number of particles of natural (unenriched) uranium in samples taken at one of the three locations,” and analysis of these particles showed that “the uranium is of anthropogenic origin, that is, it was obtained as a result of chemical processing.” The document does not contain conclusions about what this finding means, according to Reuters.
The report also says that the current Syrian authorities, according to them, have no information that could explain the presence of such uranium particles, and that the IAEA still plans to visit Deir ez-Zor and study the results of environmental samples from another facility, the agency said.
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said in June that the agency’s inspectors had full access to facilities in Syria related to the investigation of its past nuclear activities.