100+ Undeclared Syrian Chemical Weapons Sites Unverified Post-Assad

Despite the 2013 international operation that removed and destroyed over 1,300 tonnes of Syria's declared chemical weapons, the OPCW has spent more than 11 years documenting gaps, discrepancies, and inconsistencies in Syria's declaration. As of 2024, 19 of 26 outstanding issues remained unresolved, involving large quantities of potentially undeclared chemical warfare agents and munitions. After the Assad regime fell in December 2024, the scale of the problem became clearer: the OPCW now estimates that more than 100 locations -- including military facilities, airfields, and research centers -- need to be visited and assessed. This matters because unaccounted-for chemical weapons in a war-torn country represent one of the highest-risk proliferation scenarios on Earth. Syria has been in civil conflict for over a decade, territory has changed hands between government forces, rebel groups, Kurdish militias, and jihadist organizations, and the chain of custody for any remaining chemical stocks is unknown. Even small quantities of nerve agent or precursor chemicals in the wrong hands could enable a mass-casualty attack. The OPCW confirmed multiple instances of chemical weapons use in Syria (including sarin and chlorine attacks on civilians), demonstrating that the agents were not merely theoretical threats. The problem persists because verification requires physical access to sites in an active conflict zone, which no international body can guarantee. The new Syrian caretaker government has expressed willingness to cooperate with the OPCW, but it controls only part of the country and may lack knowledge of what the previous regime hid and where. The OPCW Director-General visited Syria in February 2025, but translating diplomatic goodwill into systematic site-by-site verification across 100+ locations in a fragmented, infrastructure-damaged country will take years. Meanwhile, there is no mechanism to secure or monitor the sites in the interim.