Syria’s government has found remnants of the Assad regime’s chemical weapons program, according to a Syrian official who spoke with Reuters on Tuesday.
The country’s government had “located remnants of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s clandestine chemical weapons program, including raw materials and munitions similar to those used to carry out deadly gas attacks during the country’s long-running civil war,” the official said.
In addition, Syrian authorities arrested 18 people suspected of being involved with the former regime’s chemical weapons program, with many of them being high-level military, political, and technical officials, Mohamad Katoub, Syria’s permanent representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague, said in an interview with Reuters.
Levant24, an independent Syrian media organization, also reported on the event, while an AFP article published by Al-Arabiya noted that Syria’s interior ministry had announced the arrest of a general from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s era on Friday, “accusing him of involvement in a 2013 chemical attack on a suburb of the capital, Damascus.”
The general was also accused of involvement in crimes that led to the killing of 1,400 people, with the ministry saying later that day that it arrested “Khardal Ahmed Dayoub, a former brigadier general in the forces of the ousted regime and former head of the Air Force Intelligence branch in Daraa, for his direct involvement in systematic violations against civilians.”
The AFP report added that “the ministry accused Dayoub of being ‘implicated in chemical attacks during his service in the Damascus branch and his presence in the Harasta area’ where ‘he oversaw repressive operations and contributed to the logistical coordination for the bombing of Eastern Ghouta with internationally prohibited chemical weapons.’” Syrian state media did not initially report on the arrests.
Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons in Syria
The Assad regime used chemical weapons against its own people during the Syrian civil war. For instance, a BBC report from 2013 on the regime’s attack against the Ghouta area noted at the time that a “team of UN chemical weapons inspectors has confirmed that the nerve agent sarin was used in an attack on the Ghouta agricultural belt around Damascus on the morning of 21 August.”
The report added that “[then-]UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the UN Security Council that he believed the attack constituted a war crime. The UN report, external, he said, detailed the ‘most significant confirmed use of chemical weapons against civilians since Saddam Hussein used them’ in Halabja in 1988.”
After the attacks, there was a push led by the UK and the US to strike against Syria’s regime, with both countries saying they were ready to move forward. However, UK lawmakers voted against strikes in late August 2013. At the time, NPR noted that “a White House official issued a statement tonight that said: We have seen the result of the Parliament vote. Tonight, the US will continue to consult with the UK government. President Obama’s decision-making will be guided by what is in the best interests of the United States. He believes there are core interests at stake. And countries that violate international norms regarding chemical weapons need to be held accountable.”
In 2014, the UN said that 96 percent of Syria’s chemical weapons had been removed, while the Obama administration was critiqued for stepping back from strikes.
In 2017, the Trump administration carried out strikes on Syria. USNI News noted at the time, “Senior US defense officials today briefed reporters on the planning and execution of a Tomahawk strike on al-Shayrat Airfield in Western Syria Thursday night, which involved two guided-missile destroyers launching 59 missiles at targets.”
The report added that “the US strike comes after an April 4 chemical weapons attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun, where several dozen civilians, including many children and women, were killed by what appears to be sarin gas.”
The Arms Control Association later said in 2021 that “an investigation into 77 allegations of chemical weapons use by Syria has concluded that chemical weapons were likely or definitely used in 17 cases, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) reported to the UN Security Council on June 3.”
The Assad regime fell in December 2024. By June 2025, the UN’s top disarmament official said that it “welcomed signs of increased cooperation from Syria’s interim authorities in efforts to eliminate the country’s chemical weapons once and for all, as preparations move forward for a third round of inspections by international experts.”
“However, serious concerns remain over potential undeclared stockpiles and more than a decade of incomplete or inconsistent disclosures by Syria, raising doubts about full compliance,” the UN noted. Izumi Nakamitsu, UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, said that recent missions by the international chemical weapons watchdog (OPCW) had made “meaningful progress.”
On August 21, 2025, the Syrian Network for Human Rights said: “Today marks the twelfth anniversary of the largest chemical weapons attack in Syria, which targeted Eastern and Western Ghouta in the Damascus countryside at dawn on Wednesday, August 21, 2013. Bashar al-Assad’s forces carried out a coordinated attack using missiles loaded with sarin gas, as part of a systematic policy of using chemical weapons against civilians, with clear targeting of women and children, with the intent of terrorizing society and imposing control by force.”
