Citing a Syrian official, Reuters reported on Tuesday, May 26, 2026, that Syrian authorities had found remnants of the secret chemical weapons program run by ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The official said the materials found include raw materials and munitions similar to those used in gas attacks during the years of war in Syria.
He added that the authorities recovered more than 70 rockets and bombs that were used as part of the chemical weapons program.
Syria’s permanent representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague, Mohamad Katoub, said Syrian authorities arrested 18 people suspected of involvement in the former regime’s chemical weapons program.
Katoub told Reuters that the detainees include senior military, political, and technical officials, without revealing further details about their identities or the nature of the charges against them.
Insistence on Destroying Chemical Weapons
Syria’s representative to the United Nations, Ibrahim Olabi, said during a session held on September 12, 2025, that those working on the chemical weapons file in Damascus are “witnesses and survivors of this weapon,” and are determined to confront it “one last time” and eliminate it permanently. He noted that they need technical expertise and the necessary equipment, “but they are the most patient and courageous in confronting it.”
Olabi said Syria seeks to “safeguard the global nonproliferation regime” and prevent the use of chemical weapons, considering this a “national priority” based on a firm belief in the victims’ right to redress and justice, preventing recurrence, and preserving the truth. He added that Syria needs international support to destroy the chemical weapons program.
The fourth deployment of teams from the OPCW Technical Secretariat included a visit to five suspected sites around Damascus, according to the ambassador, who said the teams conducted “investigations to obtain information about the chemical weapons program during the era of the Assad regime.”
Syria is working diligently to overcome the major challenges standing in the way of destroying the chemical weapons program, according to Olabi.
He added, “The Assad regime surrounded this program with complete secrecy and a complex security structure designed for evasion, which requires major efforts and cooperation among all concerned parties to obtain information.”
Syria, through Qatar’s permanent mission to the OPCW, submitted a “conceptual plan” for destroying those weapons, as well as a draft decision to the organization’s Executive Council that would “frame the process of destroying the chemical arsenal of the Assad era,” according to Syria’s permanent representative to the United Nations.
More Than 100 Sites Contain Chemical Weapons
In April 2025, the OPCW revealed the existence of more than 100 sites suspected of containing chemical weapons in Syria, left behind after the fall of the former Syrian regime.
According to a report published by The New York Times, the number of sites exceeds previous estimates and represents a test for the new Syrian government.
The newspaper added that some of these sites are believed to be hidden in caves or areas difficult to locate using satellite imagery, noting that the sites may contain sarin gas, as well as chlorine and mustard gases.
It said the sites were used for research, manufacturing, and storage of chemical weapons, noting that Bashar al-Assad used weapons such as sarin and chlorine gas against fighters from opposition factions and Syrian civilians over more than a decade.
The OPCW said the new figure was based on intelligence data from member states, nonprofit organizations, and research from abroad.
Massacres Without Blood
During its rule, the Syrian regime used chemical weapons against civilians in various areas of Syria, most notably in Rural Damascus.
On August 21, 2013, the Syrian regime carried out a toxic sarin gas attack targeting several towns in Eastern Ghouta (Rural Damascus, southwestern Syria), as well as Moadamiyeh al-Sham in Western Ghouta, shelling them with more than ten rockets.
The chemical attacks killed 1,119 civilians and 25 opposition fighters, and injured 5,935 others, according to documentation by the Syrian Network for Human Rights.
On April 4, 2017, the former regime bombed Khan Shaykhun (Idlib, northwestern Syria) with sarin gas, killing 91 civilians, including 32 children and 23 women, and injuring 520 others, according to documentation by the Syrian Network for Human Rights.
About six months after the Khan Shaykhun incident, a report prepared by the OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism confirmed the Syrian regime’s responsibility for releasing sarin gas on Khan Shaykhun.
Syria had joined the Chemical Weapons Convention in 2013 under a strict verification system and submitted an initial declaration on its chemical program, but it did not disclose the full weapons program, in a failed attempt to mislead the international community about its scope and scale, according to the organization’s report.
The organization’s Technical Secretariat independently confirmed the use of chemical weapons in Syria, whether by former Syrian regime forces or by non-state actors, including the Islamic State group.
With the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, an opportunity emerged to fully uncover Syria’s chemical weapons program and ensure its elimination under the convention.
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