Using a MAXAR October 5, 2024, image, the Institute for Science and International Security Israeli bomb damage assessment finds that there were likely multiple strikes on each of three main buildings at Al Qusayr that had provided underground access.
The Institute obtained commercial satellite imagery of the second site in Lebanon situated 3.1 kilometers from the Al Qusayr Underground Facility showing that it was also completely destroyed between October 3, 2024, and October 5, 2024.
The Institute for Science and International Security first analyzed the Syrian Al-Qusayr site, located near the border with Lebanon, in 2018, following a report by Der Spiegel in 2015, citing “foreign intelligence agencies” that Al-Qusayr is a secret underground nuclear facility that could contain nuclear material storage (fuel rods), and possibly a nuclear reactor or nuclear enrichment plant.
Al-Qusayr is a suspected underground military and possibly nuclear-related facility located in Syria, near the border with Lebanon.
- In the past, efforts were made to conceal the construction of the tunnel facility.
- The tunnel facility is suspected to have three tunnel entrances concealed by buildings.
- The site maintains a low security profile with only a single observable checkpoint on the main road leading towards the facility and no visible fenced security perimeter.
- Support infrastructure includes a known well onsite located above a substantial aquifer, an incoming low voltage powerline, and a suspected ventilation shaft located above the underground area.
Syria Al Qusayr And The Al Kibar Nuclear Weapons Reactor Project: Prior to its destruction, the Al Kibar reactor was an unfinished plutonium production reactor at Al Kibar that was being built with North Korean assistance. An unanswered question after the 2007 Israeli bombing was the location and fate of the many tons of uranium fuel that North Korea had shipped to Syria for this reactor.
Institute for Science and International Security Report :
Al Qusayr Destroyed October 7, 2024
- Erich Follath, “Evidence Points to Syrian Push for Nuclear Weapons,” Der Spiegel , September 1, 2015, https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/evidence-points-to-syria-still-working-on-a-nuclear-weapon-a-1012209.html. ↩
- David Albright, Sarah Burkhard, Allison Lach, and Frank Pabian, “Is the facility at Qusayr, Syria an underground nuclear facility? Public Evidence remains inconclusive,” Institute for Science and International Security, March 21, 2018, https://isis-online.org/isis-reports/detail/is-the-facility-at-qusayr-syria-an-underground-nuclear-facility/14.↩
- David Albright, Sarah Burkhard, Hannah Joudi, and Frank Pabian, “Revisiting Qusayr: Uncertainties Still Abound at Suspect Underground Site in Syria,” Institute for Science and International Security, September 13, 2018, https://isis-online.org/isis-reports/detail/revisiting-qusayr-uncertainties-still-abound-at-suspect-underground-site-in/14. ↩
- See, for example, Kim, Lance K., Rainer Jungwirth, Guido Renda, Erik Wolfart, and Giacomo G. M. Cojazzi. “Potential Signatures and the Means of Detecting a Hypothetical Ground Source Cooled Nuclear Reactor,” Science & Global Security 24, no. 2 (2016): 92–113. doi:10.1080/08929882.2016.1184529. https://scienceandglobalsecurity.org/archive/sgs24kim.pdf. ↩
