David Albright
@TheGoodISIS · Middle East
David Albright is followed by Storyz World for research and subject expertise coverage across the Middle East chapter.
Reaction to the IAEA's Board resolution on Syria: Politicizing the process The new resolution missed an important opportunity to call on Syria to provide a correct and complete nuclear declaration and adopt the Additional Protocol to facilitate the IAEA in drawing a conclusion that its nuclear program is exclusively peaceful. While everyone wants to celebrate and reward the Syrian regime's change of heart and newfound cooperation, the verification task is far from complete and claims that the case is closed are false. The 2011 resolution specifically called upon Syria to provide a complete declaration. Paragraph 4 of the resolution reads "4. Calls upon Syria to sign and promptly bring into force and implement in full the Additional Protocol and, pending that, to act in accordance with the Additional Protocol so that the Director General can provide the necessary assurances regarding both the correctness and completeness of Syria’s declarations pursuant to its safeguards agreement; " The new resolution passed a few days ago, in its own paragraph 4, calls the provisions of the 2011 resolution "terminated". The 2026 resolution cannot exempt Syria from having to provide a correct and complete declaration, which is, as is stated in 2011, a NPT safeguards requirement. And this should be done without delay. Syria's current declaration is incomplete. Based on reading the most recent IAEA Syria safeguards report, there remain questions over the total amount of uranium received from North Korea, the accomplishments of Syria to build a reprocessing program and the identification of its locations, and the progress and locations of efforts to make the nuclear weapon itself when the reactor was bombed in 2007. In addition, the role of a chief nuclear supplier of undeclared nuclear technology, materials, and components, namely North Korea, is being ignored, a practice that was unacceptable in the case of Iran and Iraq. As a result, the IAEA has not closed the circle on the nuclear weapons activities of the old regime and lost momentum to get to a better place. https://t.co/Xp2S1JKVqp ; https://t.co/bbAor3kRYM
NEW ANALYSIS: U.S.-Saudi Arabia Cooperation on Enrichment: Framework for a Black Box There is lots to digest in the U.S.-Saudi Arabia nuclear cooperation package of agreements, minute, and unclassified Nonproliferation Assessment. We started with trying to understand how and under what provisions the United States could provide Saudi Arabia with an enrichment facility. Key findings below: - The language appears deliberately structured so that a U.S. designed, built, and operated enrichment facility can be deployed in Saudi Arabia without automatically transferring the centrifuge technology embodied in that facility. Details were not provided, but in such an arrangement the U.S. would be expected to retain control of centrifuge design, production, assembly, maintenance, and physical access. - This is in line with what The Wall Street Journal earlier reported as a secretive “black box” facility, “avoiding the transfer of sensitive enrichment technology” to Saudi Arabia. - The agreement creates the framework to establish a black box centrifuge plant but establishing that facility will require many future agreements between the United States and Saudi Arabia, not just the two-year Joint Enrichment and Conversion Study (JECS). - In terms of proliferation implications, several things need to happen independently, namely restricting access to the centrifuges and centrifuge technology. The public agreement does not yet clearly establish physical access restrictions to the former. It does provide mechanisms to restrict access to much of the latter. Most notably, it categorically excludes the transfer of Restricted Data (RD) and classified information, which covers many areas related to centrifuge design, specification, production, and operation. - A potential loophole is that the agreement explicitly permits transfers of centrifuge sensitive nuclear technology (SNT) under certain circumstances. The agreement allows SNT transfer to support the Joint Enrichment and Conversion Study (JECS) or upon written agreement of the parties. Therefore, the legal architecture of the agreement is not a categorical prohibition on ever transferring or teaching information on enrichment facilities. - The public package is silent on the question of whether Saudi Arabia could pursue its own centrifuge research and development programs while also receiving a U.S.-supplied enrichment plant, including SNT, from the United States. It does say that there is an “understanding that any SNT transferred for purposes of the JECS could not be used by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for other purposes,” but this still needs to be put in writing in a yet-to-be negotiated “exchange of diplomatic notes” and raises questions on verification. - Based on our past research and current AI-assisted searches of open sources, we found little evidence in the publicly visible scientific literature of significant or sustained Saudi Arabian indigenous research on the specialized technologies required for gas-centrifuge enrichment. - This suggests that if Saudi Arabia wants to independently acquire gas centrifuge enrichment capabilities in the near-to-medium term, it will need to launch a major domestic program to do so or obtain such a capability via foreign technology and training. The latter could involve covert assistance from centrifuge suppliers, such as Pakistan, or exploitation of opportunities presented by cooperation with the United States. - Overall, the idea of a black box enrichment plant is attractive. To determine whether this package of agreements and subsequent ones will achieve a secure black box, many questions need to be answered on the extent of Saudi Arabia’s involvement in building, maintaining, and operating the enrichment facility and the risk of proliferation. A list of 21 questions that should be asked by Congress is included in our report: https://t.co/Ko3P0cHCWZ
We now have a clearer understanding of the timeline and circumstances of IAEA DG Rafael Grossi’s visits to key nuclear related sites in Syria. Footage of his visit to Marj as Sultan appears to be from 2025. At the time, the IAEA reported finding uranium particles pointing to uranium conversion at an unnamed site, which we suspected to be Marj as Sultan. The IAEA ground images, which can be correlated to satellite imagery, confirm this. The 2026 safeguards report makes clear that not only initial uranium conversion activities took place there; it states the full fuel manufacturing process also took place at this site. Footage from Grossi’s visit to the Al Kibar reactor site (Deir el-Zour) is from 2026, when Grossi wrote on X that he was in Syria to visit the site. It can be correlated with excavation activities visible in satellite imagery. Whether footage of the third site, the previously undeclared storage site of uranium metal fuel and scrap, as well as graphite, was included, is unclear. It is listed as a site visited in Grossi’s August 2026 X post. At yesterday’s press conference and as reported by @AP , Grossi described using “difficult and narrow passages” to reach the nuclear material, including having to “tear down walls.” He stated the site had “boxes scattered all over the place.” He confirmed a question on whether the site had been attacked by an airstrike and access involved clearing of rubble with a head nod and a quiet, but distinct “yes.” The confirmation of air strikes narrows the suspect sites to those targeted by Israel after the fall of Assad. A key suspect site is the Tal Qartal "Project 99/CERS" underground missile complex. A “Site 99” was reported by @axios as holding the nuclear material and as having witnessed Israeli bombing of the entrances to prevent access to the material. The area publicly associated with Site 99 is large, but we identified a specific site near Tal Qartal as having been heavily damaged in an Israeli airstrike carried out in September 2023, targeting buildings at the site, and again in a second attack in December 2024, which destroyed four probable underground tunnel entrance buildings. As of July 17, 2026, the debris from the destroyed underground tunnel entrance building appears untouched. Rubble from the other building had been partially cleared. No changes at the site can be identified during August; If this is the site where uranium metal fuel is held, no large scale recovery efforts were being made as yet. We will continue to monitor the site for any observable changes. Another possibility is the Al Qusayr tunnel site, identified as a 3 km long cross-border smuggling tunnel for Hezbollah, which was attacked in the second half of 2024. Even if this is not the site where the uranium was found, it may be one of the additional sites visited by the IAEA to take environmental samples, as it was tied to the Al Kibar site in public reporting. See also: https://t.co/9w9Xtb6cXI; https://t.co/CkhCRguR2W; https://t.co/8uaAQb7kxb; and https://t.co/FvCiSveqTB Thanks to @StLiechtenstein for asking Grossi important questions and @MilOpsUpdate for posting additional images of Grossi's 2025 visit.
NEW: Video footage from the IAEA visits in Syria shown on The World is One News in August 2026 confirms that Director General Rafael Grossi visited the Marj as Sultan compound in addition to the buried Al Kibar reactor site. The image of him inside a building can be correlated with a secondary building at the compound. The IAEA video narration appears to point to the Marj as Sultan site as the “second location that was previously undeclared," which lines up with the IAEA report identifying the second undeclared location as “a fuel fabrication plant where the nuclear fuel for the reactor at Dair Alzour [aka Al Kibar reactor] was manufactured.” The Institute published a photo in 2013 of the same chemical processing hall that Grossi visited. The image the Institute acquired in 2013 shows the hall as it appeared in about 2005, before operation, and it shows equipment being installed. Prominent is a large metal column with windows described by the source as equipment for the cleaning or purification of solutions, i.e., a scrubber or solvent extraction column. This, and other equipment in other images, is likely part of an integrated chemical processing system to convert yellowcake into uranium tetrafluoride. In last year’s NPT safeguards report, the IAEA had reported on taking environmental samples at a location where many uranium particles were present, and where analysis specifically pointed to the conversion of uranium ore concentrate to uranium oxide. In the most recent safeguards report, the IAEA concluded that the entire fuel manufacturing process took place in Syria. Given that no new site for this was identified by the IAEA, this strongly indicates that the entire multi-step process from uranium ore concentrate to UO3, the reduction to UO2, the fluorination to UF4, and the reduction to uranium metal, as well as the alloying, melting, extruding into fuel rods and cladding with magnesium alloy took place in the various buildings at the Marj as Sultan site. The images from the IAEA visit show that the interior has been completely stripped. It is the responsibility of Syria to explain where the critical and contaminated nuclear fuel production equipment now resides.
NEW 🚨: The IAEA and Syria have achieved major breakthroughs this summer in bringing Syria back into compliance with its safeguards obligations over its undeclared nuclear reactor, a fuel fabrication plant, and stored uranium metal fuel and scrap. The secret Al Kibar reactor at the Dair Alzour site was nearing completion when bombed by Israel in 2007, bringing to an end a major nuclear weapons effort based on plutonium that Syria was steadily advancing with the assistance of North Korea. Yet, despite the significant progress on Syria coming into compliance, which is to be commended, Syria has not yet come clean about its nuclear weapons ambitions under the old regime. The recent breakthroughs follow years of denials by the previous Syrian government that the site contained a nuclear reactor. With a new government, these breakthroughs became possible. The IAEA stated in its September 1, 2026, NPT Safeguards Implementation report on Syria that it has been able to clarify and resolve the Agency’s questions concerning the outstanding safeguards issues previously reported to the Board. However, the report does not state that the IAEA has received from Syria a complete nuclear declaration or that verification activities are finished. Information absent in the report includes: The planned scope, location, and schedule of the facility to separate plutonium from fuel that was to be irradiated in the reactor. This activity is referred to as “reprocessing” in the IAEA report; North Korea’s cooperation in building the reactor and providing associated technologies and facilities needed to operate the reactor, make the fuel, and separate plutonium; Any discussion about nuclear weaponization Syria may have conducted, with or without North Korean assistance. Moreover, the new information reflects what has been reported by the IAEA and others, such as the U.S. and Israeli governments, Süddeutsche Zeitung (on uranium conversion), and the Institute, about Syria’s undeclared nuclear activities. The new revelations provide confirmation and new details of certain activities and facilities, but they do not provide any surprises or fill in the missing information about the entire scope of the reactor and reprocessing project and Syria’s cooperation with North Korea. As such, the recent breakthroughs should be celebrated, but they do not yet achieve the transparency achieved in prior such cases, such as in South Africa, Taiwan, and Iraq in the 1990s. The IAEA should seek additional information from Syria with the aim to ensure the Agency has received and verified a complete declaration of Syria’s previously undeclared nuclear efforts. The report contains several bulleted findings of the new information on the ongoing issue of Syria’s NPT safeguards compliance contained in IAEA report on Syria and provides context for this information. Our report also contains several recommendations: The IAEA Board should adopt a resolution commending Syria’s new government’s effort but require the IAEA to ensure Syria’s nuclear declaration is complete. Syria should resolve additional questions on the context and framework under which the secret plutonium production reactor was built, i.e., on its role within a secret nuclear weapons program and other nuclear weapons relevant activities that took place. The uranium metal fuel should be removed for safety and security reasons. Key, single-use equipment related to uranium conversion and fuel manufacturing, as well as plutonium separation, should be located and rendered unusable or removed as well. The report can be found here: https://t.co/CkhCRguR2W
Recent high resolution Vantor and Airbus satellite imagery from July and August 2026 shows the establishment and ongoing construction of dozens of large lattice towers surrounding the Shahed (Geran) production facilities and other buildings involved in supplying drone production. The defensive system consists of two layers of towers: an inner perimeter consisting of shorter towers directly surrounding the key production facilities, and an outer perimeter consisting of taller towers surrounding the wider area. The tall red-and-white towers are evenly spaced and surround the buildings, suggesting that they are part of a passive defensive structure, possibly to hold a metal wire mesh of cables to enclose the facilities. This will make it more difficult for cruise missiles and explosive laden drones to target the production complex. Alabuga began erecting the towers sometime after May 18, 2026, based on available satellite imagery. Imagery from early July 2026 shows the inner perimeter surrounding the main production facilities completed. By late July, Alabuga had made significant progress also on the outer security perimeter consisting of larger towers. This outer security perimeter includes the Alabuga-Fiber production facilities, an important source of carbon fiber used in Shahed drone production. An image from early August showed that several additional towers were also constructed then. Cranes and staging areas assembling the towers can be seen around the site. This likely passive defensive measure adds additional layers of security to the Alabuga SEZ. Surrounding Alabuga are several air-defense positions, each consisting of a position for a self-propelled anti-aircraft vehicle and manned lattice towers where weapons and electronic warfare systems can be stationed. The construction of the new passive defensive structures comes at a time when Ukraine is increasingly targeting facilities across Russia using large swarms of long-range strike drones and domestically produced FP-5 cruise missiles. This effort further highlights the importance of the Shahed drone production facilities at Alabuga to Russia’s war effort. link: https://t.co/xIEDiaUrli Author: @SFnuclear and the Good ISIS Team
NEW: Probable Uranium Storage Facility Identified at the Natanz Nuclear Complex The Institute has identified a separately enclosed, partially below-ground, bunkered building at the Natanz Nuclear Complex that was likely intended to serve as uranium hexafluoride (UF6) storage facility to support large-scale uranium enrichment at the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant. The bunkered structure was constructed between 2010 and 2017, with the bulk of construction occurring between 2015 and 2017. Given Iran’s focus on enriching its low enriched uranium to highly enriched uranium and decision to store large amounts of the HEU at locations other than Natanz, it is unclear how the building was used before the June 2025 war. It is also unclear what role it has had since. The building has ample room to store a significant number of UF6 30B, 48 X, and 48 Y cylinders, far more storage than is required for the amount of UF6 Iran produced. The floor space is more than enough to house Iran’s pre-June 2025 inventory of uranium enriched to less than 5 percent, as well as depleted uranium that has resulted from pre-JCPOA and post-2018 enrichment. The building has ample room to store a significant number of UF6 30B, 48 X, and 48 Y cylinders, far more storage than is required for the amount of UF6 Iran produced. At 1500 square meters, with a conservative half to two-thirds of the amount used for storage and the other half to one-third for clearance, operations, and handling, the facility could dedicate 750 - 1000 square meters to the storage of UF6 cylinders. To put this into perspective, the storage of current enriched uranium stocks and depleted uranium tails is estimated to take up at most about 150 square meters. This represents about 10 percent of the total estimated floor space, or up to 20 percent of the total available storage floor space. The floor space lines up better with planned enrichment scenarios. For example, the available space matches the storage requirement for the annual product plus accumulated tails for 10 years of operation at 100,000 kgU swu/yr, if cylinders are stored in a single layer. There has not been any observable activity at this facility in imagery dating back to June 2025. Read the full report linked below for a full understanding and breakdown of the possible storage capabilities of this bunkered facility. Link: https://t.co/6j8pi3OMyb
@Airbus Satellite imagery from mid-July and early-August show light vehicle activity at the above ground section of the Esfahan nuclear complex. Several container trucks and small passenger vehicles can be seen throughout the complex. The western most parking lot has several vehicles in it, while the ones closest to the main complex are nearly empty. It is unclear what exactly this activity is indicative of, but the presence of container trucks raises questions as to if Iran is attempting to recover and transport items from the remaining structures or destroyed buildings. As of August 3rd, the tunnel entrances remain backfilled with dirt and are inaccessible. Iran has made no attempt to dig into them.