Ba'athist Syria researched, manufactured, stockpiled, and allegedly used chemical weapons, and pursued the production of nuclear weapons. The covert Syrian chemical weapons program began in the 1970s with assistance from Egypt and the Soviet Union. The Syrian civil war saw extensive use of chemical weapons in hundreds of attacks, predominantly by the Syrian Arab Armed Forces using sarin and chlorine. ISIL also used mustard gas, and Seymour Hersh controversially reported that the Syrian opposition forces used sarin. The August 2013 Ghouta sarin attack was the deadliest of the war, triggering international pressure, and in September, the United States, Russia, and Syria announced an agreement for the elimination of Syria's chemical weapon stockpiles, excluding chlorine. The OPCW-UN Joint Mission completed destruction of Syria's declared chemical weapons production facilities at the end of October 2013, and shipped overseas its declared stockpile by June 2014. The mission was undermined as Syria disclosed a ricin program and further production sites throughout 2014 and 2015. According to a OPCW-UN investigation, the Syrian military perpetrated the 2017 Khan Shaykhun sarin attack, which prompted a retaliatory US missile strike. The 2018 Douma chlorine attack triggered a joint missile strike by the US, UK, and France. Following the 2024 fall of the Assad regime, foreign minister Asaad al-Shaibani stated in March 2025 that the Syrian caretaker government would cooperate with an incoming OPCW mission to destroy any remaining chemical weapons. Syria sought to develop nuclear weapons with assistance from North Korea, and alleged funding and coordination with Iran. It began construction of a weapons-grade plutonium production reactor at Al Kibar. Mossad and the United States Intelligence Community became aware of the site in 2004, and the Israeli Air Force carried out an airstrike that destroyed the facility in 2007. The Syria file at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) remains open, amid Syria's failure to respond to the IAEA's questions about the destroyed facility, including the whereabouts of the reactor's nuclear fuel. In January 2015, it was reported that the Syrian government was suspected to be building a nuclear plant in Al-Qusayr. In 2025, the new government allowed the IAEA to inspect several sites related to its nuclear program. In August 2026, the Trump administration brokered a deal between Syria and Israel by allowing the IAEA to remove nuclear material stored at "Site 99" storage facility linked to the Al Kibar reactor.
Background Following the Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights during the 1967 Six-Day War, and South Lebanon in 1978, the Syrian government has regarded Israeli military power as a threat to Syrian security. Syria first acquired chemical weapons from Egypt in 1973 as a military deterrent against Israel before launching the Yom Kippur War. Despite the fact that Syrian officials did not explicitly declare the chemical weapons capability, they implied it through speeches and in addition warned of retaliations. Internal Syrian chemical weapons capability may have been developed with indirect Russian, German, Chinese technical and logistical support. It is likely Syria imported dual-use chemical weapon precursors and production equipment from West Europe, China and North Korea. In 1997, security analyst Zuhair Diab, who worked for the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a diplomat from 1981 to 1985, wrote that Israeli nuclear weapons were a primary motivation for the Syrian chemical weapons program. Their rivalry with Iraq and Turkey were also important considerations. On 23 July 2012 Syria implicitly confirmed it possessed a stockpile of chemical weapons which it says are reserved for national defense against foreign countries. During the Syrian Civil War, in August 2012, the Syrian military restarted chemical weapons testing at a base on the outskirts of Aleppo. Chemical weapons were a major point of discussion between the Syrian government and world leaders, with military intervention being considered by the West as a potential consequence of the use of such weapons.
Chemical weapons
Syria's chemical weapons program Syria's chemical weapons program began in the 1970s with weapons and training from Egypt and the Soviet Union, with production of chemical weapons in Syria beginning in the mid-1980s. In the July 2007 Syrian arms depot explosion, there were suggestions that the incident involved a secret chemical weapons facility. Prior to September 2013 Syria was one of a handful of states which had not ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention, and had not publicly admitted to possessing chemical weapons, although Western intelligence services believed it to hold a massive stockpile. In September 2013, French intelligence put the Syrian stockpile at 1,000 tonnes, including mustard gas, VX and "several hundred tonnes of sarin". After international condemnation of the August 2013 Ghouta chemical attack, for which Western states held the Syrian government responsible (whilst Syria and Russia held the Syrian rebels of the Syrian civil war responsible), in September 2013 Syria joined the Convention (formally acceding on 14 October), as part of its agreement to the destruction of its chemical weapons under the supervision of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. In October 2013, the OPCW found a total of 1,300 tons of chemical weapons. On 16 October 2013, the OPCW and the United Nations formally established a joint mission to oversee the elimination of the Syrian chemical weapons program by mid-2014, which was declared completed in January 2016. According to Reuters, a chemical analysis done in January 2018 on the destroyed stockpile samples match some chemical markers such as hexamine, unique to the Syrian recipe for sarin, with samples from the 21 August 2013 Ghouta attack and also from interviewees' samples from Khan Sheikhoun and Khan Al-Assal attack sites.
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