The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, or OPCW, said it, along with Syria's provisional government, had found dozens of undeclared chemical weapons across Syria hidden during the rule of ousted President Bashar al Assad, The Defense Post reported on May 26. The discoveries included bombs, rockets and materials to produce chemical weapons.

Though Assad nominally pledged to destroy the country's decades-old chemical weapons program in 2012, the government would go on to use chemical weapons multiple times over the course of Syria's civil war, sparking U.S. airstrikes in 2017-18. Since the fall of Assad's regime in December 2024, chemical weapons have been at risk of falling into the hands of militants like the Islamic State amid persistent security vacuums. Syria previously had stockpiles of mustard gas, sarin and highly lethal VX gas.