• Material likely meant for Assad-era secret nuclear reactor, bombed by Israel in 2007
• Syrian court sentences Assad’s cousin to death for ‘crimes against humanity’; Lebanon to extradite former general
• US envoy slams unnecessary escalation after Israel bombs Syrian air base near Turkish border

DAMASCUS: The head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog said on Tuesday its insp­ectors had found tonnes of nuclear material in Syria, at a site Damascus reported to the agency last month.

The inspectors visited two sites, one in Deir Ezzor and “a second location related to the nuclear material identified by Syria recently”, according to a joint statement.

Speaking at a news conference in Damascus, Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), praised Damascus’s “courageous decision” to report the undisclosed site, which dates back to the rule of ousted former leader Bashar-al-Assad.

In 2008, US officials had accused Syria of having sought to build a secret nuclear reactor, and acknowledged that Israel had destroyed it in an air strike a year earlier.

The UN atomic watchdog declared in 2011 that the Syrian site was “very likely” to have been a nuclear reactor, adding that information provided to it suggested that it was being built with North Korean assistance.

“We are talking about a few tonnes of nuclear material that could be put to bad use,” he said, promising that it would be put under international safeguards.

Speaking at a joint press conference with Grossi, Syria’s Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani said: “On July 17, we sent an official letter to the agency, in which we declared of our own free will the presence of nuclear materials at an undeclared site within the legacy left by the former regime.” Shaibani said technical assessments indicated that the materials do not pose a risk, adding that they “will remain in Syrian national custody and subject to the agency’s safeguards system”.

Grossi, meanwhile, said “this material will be accounted for, will be put within the international safeguards system”.

Assad’s cousin sentenced to death

Separately, a Syrian court handed a death sentence to Wassim al Assad, a cousin of longtime ruler Bashar-al-Assad, who was himself sentenced to death in absentia last week.

The judge said Bashar-al-Assad’s 46-year-old relative was found guilty of “multiple murders” and “murder accompanied by torture and brutality… classified as crimes against humanity and war crimes”. “He is therefore sentenced to death,” Fakhr al Din al Aryan added.

Syria began proceedings in April against the former ruler and other officials accused of atrocities during the civil war, which erupted in 2011 with the repression of pro-democracy protesters by the former authorities.

The court found that Wassim al Assad had formed two armed groups loyal to the former authorities that took part in deadly attacks near Damascus.

It also convicted him of “inciting civil war and sectarian fighting”, as well as deprivation of liberty and torture.

General to be extradited

Meanwhile, Lebanon’s judiciary deci­d­­ed to extradite a former Syrian general it detained this month following a warrant from Damascus accusing him of “killing and crimes against humanity”

According to a judicial official, the public prosecutor “decided to extradite former Syrian General Adel Issa, currently detained in Lebanon, to Syrian authorities to stand trial for crimes he is accused of committing on Syrian soil” during the rule of Bashar-al-Assad.

Issa, a 67-year-old former general in the Syrian army, headed to his country’s embassy in Beirut for paperwork earlier this month, another judicial official said at the time.

Israel bombs air base

In a separate Israel bombed a disused military air base in Syria near Turkish border, drawing criticism from a US envoy who called it an “unnecessary escalation”.

Syria’s state-run Ekhbariya daily, citing a military source, said Israel carried out eight air strikes targeting the runway and storage facilities at the Abu al Duhur base, while a separate military source said there were no casualties.

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2026