Syria’s transitional government said on Tuesday it has recovered “remnants” of the secret chemical weapons program created by deposed dictator Bashar Assad and have arrested 18 suspects who were allegedly involved in the program.
Assad was overthrown in December 2024 and sought refuge in Russia, one of the nations that propped up his rule during the long and brutal Syrian civil war. He was replaced by a “transitional government” run by an alliance of insurgents and jihadis and presided over by a former member of al-Qaeda named Ahmed al-Sharaa.
The new Syrian government turned against Assad’s old patrons of Russia and Iran and promised to work with Western nations in a variety of ways, including joining the Global Coalition to Defeat the Islamic State in November 2025.
The transitional government is also working with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), based out of the Hague. The OPCW said on Tuesday that its inspectors were able to visit several previously undeclared chemical weapons sites in Syria, where they found “dozens of undeclared chemical munitions such as aerial bombs and rockets, as well as separately found chemicals and related equipment.”
Syrian officials working with OPCW inspectors have found over 70 rockets and bombs that were evidently designed to carry chemical payloads, similar to those used by Assad’s forces in attacks on rebel areas in 2013 and 2017.
Inspectors also found ingredients for making the nerve gas sarin, including a powder called hexamine that has several industrial applications but has been used by Assad’s technicians to weaponize sarin gas.
OPCW and U.N. inspectors have previously located stockpiles of chlorine and mustard gas employed by the Syrian military. OPCW has a list of roughly a hundred sites in Syria that still need to be examined.
The transitional government’s representative to OPCW, Mahamad Katoub, said the chemical weapons discoveries and arrests were a triumph for the Syrian people over the evils of the deposed regime.
“Today we delivered for the Syrian people and for the world, despite the secrecy, the danger, and the enormous security challenges,” he said.
“It is the first time such munitions could be recovered before they were used in crimes against the Syrian people,” he added.
Katoub did not name the 18 suspects arrested in connection with the chemical weapons program, but he said the list included “high-level military, political, and technical officials.” At least four of the suspects have been placed under sanctions by the United States, United Kingdom, and/or European Union.
The Syrian Interior Ministry announced on May 8 that a senior military official from the Assad regime, former Brig. Gen. Khardal Ahmed Dayoub, had been arrested in connection with a chemical attack on a suburb of Damascus in 2013. He was also linked to chemical attacks on Eastern Ghouta.
Dayout was charged with “direct involvement in systematic violations against civilians,” including the deaths of some 1,400 people.
OPCW Director-General Amb. Fernando Arias said on Wednesday that the outcome of the latest investigations in Syria “confirms the Secretariat’s repeated assessment since 2014 that the former Syrian regime withheld information and unsuccessfully attempted to mislead the Secretariat and the international community on the extent of its chemical weapons program.”
“I welcome Syria’s cooperation and support for this deployment,” Arias said.
“The Syrian authorities now need to declare and destroy what has been found, under the Secretariat’s verification and to continue supporting the Secretariat in unveiling the full scope of the chemical weapons program they have inherited,” he added.