IAEA Confirms Uranium Samples From Syria

October 2025

The International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed the presence of uranium originating from human activity in samples taken from Syria in 2024, a Sept. 1 report from Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi said.

The samples were taken from three locations functionally related to the site in Dair al Zour, where an undeclared nuclear reactor was located. Israel destroyed the facility in a 2007 airstrike. (See ACT, April 2018.)

Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa had granted the IAEA unrestricted access to sites in Syria following a June meeting in Damascus. At the meeting, Grossi presented results of the 2024 sampling to Syrian officials.

“The analysis of samples taken at one of these three locations revealed a significant number of natural uranium particles of anthropogenic origin, some of which are consistent with the conversion of uranium ore concentrate to uranium oxide,” Grossi told the IAEA Board of Governors Sept. 8.

The IAEA plans to visit the site to conduct further analysis in the coming weeks.

“We are hopeful that the IAEA’s questions can be credibly answered and that Syria can make concrete progress towards resolving its noncompliance with its safeguards agreement, as the Board has been calling for since 2011,” the United States said in a Sept. 9 statement to the board.—LIPI SHETTY