IAEA says Syria site bombed by Israel in 2007 ‘consistent with nuclear reactor’

A Syrian site held infrastructure “consistent with a nuclear reactor,” the UN nuclear watchdog says in a confidential report seen by AFP, adding that the country under ousted former leader Bashar al-Assad “failed to report nuclear material, facilities and activities.”

Inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) last month visited two sites, one in Deir Ezzor and a second location related to nuclear material identified by Syria.

The Deir Ezzor site was the target of an Israeli strike in September 2007. Israel did not officially take responsibility for the bombing for more than a decade, in part to avoid retaliation from Damascus. But Jerusalem was widely presumed to be behind the strike, and officially acknowledged it in 2018.

“Based on observations made by the agency at the Deir Ezzor site, the agency confirms that the cooling infrastructure which has now been uncovered is consistent with that of a nuclear reactor,” the IAEA said.

The agency says it would continue to monitor the activities at the site “as the excavation work progresses.”

“Based on the information provided by Syria and the results of the agency’s verification activities conducted at several locations in Syria, the agency is able to establish that the former Syrian authorities had failed to report nuclear material, facilities and activities,” it says.

Besides the “nuclear reactor under construction” at the Deir Ezzor site, the IAEA lists a fuel fabrication plant, where the nuclear fuel for the reactor was manufactured, and a location where the nuclear fuel, as well as uranium scrap and waste, were stored.

Grossi said last month in Damascus that IAEA inspectors had found several tons of nuclear material in Syria, at a site Damascus reported to the agency in July.