The Syrian government has located remnants of former leader Bashar Al Assad's secret chemical weapons programme, it was revealed on Tuesday.
The discovery includes raw materials and munitions similar to those used to carry out deadly gas attacks during Syria's civil war, which raged from 2011 to 2024. Ingredients used to make sarin nerve gas were among the finds.
Syrian authorities have also taken 18 people into custody for alleged involvement in the Assad-era weapons programme, said Mohamad Katoub, Syria's permanent representative to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. He told Reuters in an interview that the detained suspects included high-level military, political and technical officials.
The announcement is the first sign of a breakthrough since Syria unveiled a plan in March to eliminate the remnants of the chemical weapons programme and close one of the most harrowing chapters of the civil war.
A task force was announced to find, secure and dismantle whatever was left of Syria’s clandestine chemical weapons. Investigators and human rights groups have documented repeated use of banned agents, including sarin and chlorine gas, in attacks that killed and injured thousands of civilians.
The names of the suspects were not made public because the investigation was in progress, said Mr Katoub. But several had served as major generals under the Assad regime, and at least four were on European, UK or US sanctions lists, he said.
The OPCW said in a report on Tuesday that its team in Syria had visited several high-priority undeclared locations in coastal and central areas with Syrian authorities. The mission was continuing, it said, but “dozens of undeclared chemical munitions such as aerial bombs and rockets, as well as separately found chemicals and related equipment” had been discovered.
Syrian teams, working for months with OPCW inspectors, located more than 70 rockets and aerial bombs, as well as raw ingredients for the production of sarin, Mr Katoub said.
Chemical weapon mixing and storage equipment and hexamine, a stabilisation agent known to have been used by Assad's forces in sarin production, were also found during searches at three locations.
“Despite the secrecy, the danger, and the immense security challenges ... today we delivered for the Syrian people and for the world,” Mr Katoub said. “It is the first time such munitions could be recovered before they were used in crimes against the Syrian people.”
The new Syrian authorities under President Ahmad Al Shara have made extensive efforts to track down Assad loyalists since taking power. Bashar Al Assad fled to Russia in late 2024 and has not been seen since.
Former air force commander Maj Gen Jayez Al Moussa, who was allegedly responsible for chemical attacks, was captured by the country's new authorities this month. Another former general, Adnan Abboud Halawa, was detained last month over his suspected role in a 2013 chemical attack on Ghouta. More than 1,400 people are estimated to have died in that attack, including more than 200 children.
The first trial of a high-ranking Assad ally opened last month as Atef Najib, the former head of security in Deraa, faces charges of killing and torturing protesters. The protest and resulting crackdown in Deraa in 2011 are regarded as the beginning of Syria's civil war.
