Nuclear watchdog: 2.5 tons of uranium go missing in Libya

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Some 2.5 tons of natural uranium stored in a site in wartorn Libya have gone missing, the United Nations nuclear watchdog said Thursday, raising safety and proliferation concerns.

However, forces allied to a warlord battling the Libyan government based in the capital of Tripoli claimed Thursday night that they recovered the material. U.N. inspectors said they were trying to confirm that.

Natural uranium cannot immediately be used for energy production or bomb fuel, as the enrichment process typically requires the metal to be converted into a gas, then later spun in centrifuges to reach the levels needed.

But each ton of natural uranium — if obtained by a group with the technological means and resources — can be refined to 12 pounds of weapons-grade material over time, experts say. That makes finding the missing metal important for nonproliferation experts.

In a statement, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency said its director-general, Rafael Mariano Grossi, informed member states Wednesday about the missing uranium.

The IAEA statement remained tightlipped though on details.

On Tuesday, “agency safeguards inspectors found that 10 drums containing approximately 2.5 tons of natural uranium in the form of uranium ore concentrate were not present as previously declared at a location in the state of Libya,” the IAEA said. “Further activities will be conducted by the agency to clarify the circumstances of the removal of the nuclear material and its current location.”

The IAEA did not identify the site, nor did it respond to questions about it from The Associated Press.

Reuters first reported on the IAEA warning about the missing Libyan uranium, saying the IAEA told members reaching the site that’s not under government control required “complex logistics.”

One such declared site is Sabha, some 410 miles southeast of Tripoli, in the country’s lawless southern reaches of the Sahara Desert. Libya’s late dictator Moammar Gadhafi stored thousands of barrels of so-called yellowcake uranium for a once-planned uranium conversion facility that was never built in his decadeslong secret weapons program.

Estimates put the Libyan stockpile at some 1,000 metric tons of yellowcake uranium under Gadhafi, who declared his nascent nuclear weapons program to the world in 2003 following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.