WASHINGTON, June 21: A UN team has found most of the uranium feared stolen from a nuclear site outside Baghdad, the journal Science reported on Friday.

“Nearly all the material that went missing has been recovered,” said an unnamed International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) official cited on the journal’s website.

Iraqis reportedly pillaged the facility prior to the arrival of coalition forces in the area around the Tuwaitha facility, 30kms from Baghdad.

The magazine said the IAEA would not make any official comment before its findings are presented to the US-led forces occupying Iraq.

“We want to make sure first that the report is completely accurate,” said IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming.

The inspectors compared the amount of uranium on site with the amount the IAEA logged during a December 2002 visit.

The team is the first group of UN inspectors to return since experts attempting to determine whether Iraq possessed banned weapons left the country on the eve of the war.

The inspectors began their work on June 7 to check compliance with the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Their mission seeks to establish whether fissile materials had been removed and to secure materials left at the site. —AFP