Reuters reported that the International Atomic Energy Agency told member states on Wednesday that its inspectors had discovered the loss of about 2.5 tons of natural uranium from a site in Libya that is no longer under government control.
Raphael Grossi, the director general of the UN agency, said that the agency's inspectors discovered during an inspection, on Tuesday, that "10 cylinders (barrels) containing about 2.5 tons of natural uranium in the form of crude uranium concentrates that were stored at a site on Libyan soil are not present there."
He added that the agency will carry out "other actions" to clarify the circumstances of the removal of the uranium from the site, whose name and location were not specified.
"The loss of knowledge about the current location of nuclear materials could pose a radiological danger, as well as security concerns in the nuclear field," he said, adding that getting to the site would require "complicated logistics."
In 2003, Libya under Muammar Gaddafi gave up its nuclear weapons program after obtaining centrifuges that could enrich uranium and information to design a nuclear bomb, but it made only a little progress toward building a bomb before ending the race.