Nearly two decades after Israel destroyed a secret Syrian facility in a daring airstrike, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog has confirmed that the site contained infrastructure consistent with a nuclear reactor and that the Assad regime concealed its nuclear activities from international inspectors.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a confidential report that inspectors who recently visited the Deir Ezzor site uncovered cooling infrastructure consistent with a nuclear reactor. The agency said it has now established that a nuclear reactor was under construction at the site.
Israel destroyed the facility in September 2007 in what became known as Operation Orchard. Jerusalem remained publicly silent about its responsibility for more than a decade, formally acknowledging the operation only in 2018.
The IAEA’s findings go significantly beyond the reactor itself. Investigators determined that Syria also operated an undeclared facility where nuclear fuel for the reactor was manufactured, as well as another location where nuclear fuel, uranium scrap and nuclear waste were stored.
Inspectors also verified approximately 73 metric tons of natural uranium metal at a related location, including roughly 55 tons in the form of fuel rods. The nuclear material is now under IAEA containment and surveillance.
The agency concluded that the Assad regime had violated its international obligations by failing to declare the nuclear material, facilities and activities associated with the program.
The breakthrough came after the fall of Bashar Assad’s regime in 2024. Syria’s new government granted international inspectors access to previously restricted locations and provided information that allowed the IAEA to resolve longstanding questions surrounding the clandestine nuclear program.
The new Syrian authorities have since provided the required nuclear accounting and facility information and have cooperated with the IAEA in placing the remaining material under international safeguards.
The findings provide the strongest confirmation yet of what Israel maintained when it carried out the 2007 strike: Syria was secretly constructing a nuclear reactor while keeping the project hidden from international inspectors.
(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
