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Nuclear inspectors to visit Syria The US has said Syria's reactor was similar to a North Korean one The UN nuclear agency has said that Syria is to allow inspectors to visit the country to investigate allegations that it was building a nuclear reactor.The International Atomic Energy Agency says its inspectors are due in Syria between the 22 and 24 June. The alleged nuclear site was bombed by Israeli jets in September 2007. In April, the United States accused North Korea of helping Syria build a nuclear reactor that "was not intended for peaceful purposes". SEQUENCE OF EVENTS 6...

The reasons are twofold. When the Israelis first became concerned about the North Koreans' activities in Syria last summer, the Americans were negotiating a delicate deal to persuade Pyongyang to give up its nuclear programme in return for a relaxation of the trade sanctions that have crippled the North Korean economy. Had the Israelis gone public with the intelligence that the North Koreans were actively helping Syria to acquire nuclear technology, it might seriously have undermined Washington's diplomatic efforts. If the Americans want to expose North Korea's links to Damascus, that is their affair. For their part, the Israelis are...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Syria's ambassador to the United States said Friday that the CIA fabricated pictures allegedly taken inside a secret Syrian nuclear reactor and predicted that in the coming weeks the U.S. story about the site would "implode from within.""The photos presented to me yesterday were ludicrous, laughable," Ambassador Imad Moustapha told reporters at his Washington residence.However, he refused to say what the building in the remote eastern desert of Syria was used for before Israeli jets bombed it in September 2007.Senior U.S. intelligence officials said Thursday they believe it was a secret nuclear reactor meant to produce plutonium,...

Syria 'had covert nuclear scheme' The US says there were similarities between the Syrian and North Korean reactors The United States has accused North Korea of helping Syria build a nuclear reactor that "was not intended for peaceful purposes". The site, said to be like one in North Korea, was bombed by Israel in 2007. Syria must "come clean" about its secret nuclear programme, the White House said in a statement after CIA officials briefed members of Congress. Syria has repeated denials that it has any nuclear weapons programme, or any such agreement with North Korea. Syrian officials have...

Israelis hit Syrian ‘nuclear bomb plant’ Uzi Mahnaimi in Tel Aviv and Michael Sheridan in Seoul ISRAEL’S top-secret air raid on Syria in September destroyed a bomb factory assembling warheads fuelled by North Korean plutonium, a leading Israeli nuclear expert has told The Sunday Times. Professor Uzi Even of Tel Aviv University was one of the founders of the Israeli nuclear reactor at Dimona, the source of the Jewish state’s undeclared nuclear arsenal. “I suspect that it was a plant for processing plutonium, namely, a factory for assembling the bomb,” he said. “I think the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of...

Ten weeks have passed since the Israel Air Force attacked in Syria, and there is still no reliable information about the precise target that was destroyed, or about the importance and necessity of the attack. Since Israel keeps maintaining its veil of secrecy, Everything that is known comes from leaks by anonymous U.S. administration officials to several of the major American media outlets. What is almost certain, judging from the leaks, are the following facts: A nuclear site built by the Syrians was attacked, and there was some connection to know-how and technology transferred from North Korea. The prevailing assumption...

ISIS recently obtained commercial satellite imagery from DigitalGlobe taken on August 10, 2007 of a large portion of Eastern Syria along the Euphrates River. After an extensive search and analysis of the imagery, ISIS found a site that could be the target of the Israeli raid inside Syria on September 6, 2007. The tall building in the image may house a reactor under construction and the pump station along the river may have been intended to supply cooling water to the reactor (Figure 1). The tall building, located approximately 780 meters from the river, is square with approximately 47 meter...

CAIRO, Egypt: Commercial satellite images show construction in Syria that resembles the early stages of a small North Korean-model nuclear reactor, a report said, speculating that it was the site hit last month by an Israeli airstrike. The photos, taken nearly a month before the Sept. 6 strike, show a tall box-like building near the Euphrates River that the report said was similar in shape to a North Korean five-megawatt reactor building in Yongbyon. It cautioned that the Syrian building was "not far enough along in its construction to make a definitive comparison." The photo also shows a smaller building...

Sources in Damascus say Syria expected Israel to launch a wide scale attack two weeks ago near the time of Eid el-Fitr, leading to a series of preventatives Syrian steps, the UAE al-Halij newspaper said

Independent experts have pinpointed what they believe to be the Euphrates River site in Syria that was bombed by Israel last month, and satellite imagery of the area shows buildings under construction roughly similar in design to a North Korean reactor capable of producing nuclear material for one bomb a year, the experts say. Photographs of the site taken before the secret Sept. 6 airstrike depict an isolated compound that includes a tall, boxy structure similar to the type of building used to house a gas-graphite reactor. They also show what could have been a pumping station used to supply...

Syria has begun dismantling the remains of a site Israel bombed Sept. 6 in what may be an attempt to prevent the location from coming under international scrutiny, said U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the aftermath of the attack. Based on overhead photography, the officials say the site in Syria's eastern desert near the Euphrates River had a "signature" or characteristics of a small but substantial nuclear reactor, one similar in structure to North Korea's facilities. The dismantling of the damaged site, which appears to be still underway, could make it difficult for weapons inspectors to determine the precise...

Israel obtained detailed photographs from inside an alleged Syrian nuclear facility prior to carrying out an air strike on September 6, ABC News reported Friday night. ...Mossad had discovered in the summer that Syria was constructing a nuclear facility and proceeded to either place a mole inside the plant or convince one of the workers to supply Israel with intelligence. ...Israel urged the US to carry out the attack, the ABC report said, and US officials began examining options for a strike. Possible tactics were assessed, including the possibility of a helicopter raid. However, word came from the White House...

Israeli officials believed that a target their forces bombed inside Syria last month was a nuclear facility, because they had detailed photographs taken by a possible spy inside the complex, ABC News has learned.

Syria has begun dismantling the ruins of a site that was bombed by the Israel Air Force on September 6, the Washington Post reported Friday. According to the report, which quotes senior U.S. officials, this could be an attempt by Syria to avoid an international inspection of the bombed facility. ...The Washington Post quoted top U.S. officials as saying that photos taken from the air reveal that that the site had the characteristics of a small but significant nuclear reactor, similar to those found in North Korea.

Israel Silent on Reports of Bombing Within Syria /snip But he added that a “constellation of interests” between North Korea and Syria could have led Syria to go “a stage further” in its quest for strategic parity and deterrence, by moving beyond its chemical ability into the nuclear realm, “as Iran is doing.” Noting the pressure on North Korea to end its nuclear weapons program, the general suggested that smuggling some elements of its program to Syria would have allowed the North “to preserve the knowledge it has accumulated and not just throw it away.” /snip North Korea’s route to...

VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog did not know about any undeclared atomic plant in Syria and has asked Damascus about information that such a site was targeted by an Israeli air strike, a spokeswoman said on Monday.

Israel strike 'targeted Syrian nuclear reactor' By Alex Spillius in Washington Last Updated: 5:42pm BST 14/10/2007 Israel's secretive air strike inside Syria last month was directed at a site judged by Israeli and US intelligence analysts to be a partly constructed nuclear reactor, according to a report. Israel has not given any details on the operation in Syria Officials said the reactor was modelled on one in North Korea used for stockpiling nuclear weapons fuel but was in the early stages of development. The attack on the location in north-eastern Syria on Sept 6 has been subject to an official...

Analysts Find Israel Struck a Nuclear Project Inside Syria By DAVID E. SANGER and MARK MAZZETTI WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 — Israel’s air attack on Syria last month was directed against a site that Israeli and American intelligence analysts judged was a partly constructed nuclear reactor, apparently modeled on one North Korea has used to create its stockpile of nuclear weapons fuel, according to American and foreign officials with access to the intelligence reports. The description of the target addresses one of the central mysteries surrounding the Sept. 6 attack, and suggests that Israel carried out the raid to demonstrate its...

NEW YORK - An Israeli airstrike on Syria last month targeted a partially built nuclear reactor that was years away from completion, the New York Times reported Saturday, citing U.S. and foreign officials. The report said President Bush's administration had intense discussions with the Israeli government before the strike and U.S. officials were divided over whether it would be premature. Syrian President Bashar Assad has said Israel bombed an "unused military building" in the Sept. 6 raid. Israel has been extremely secretive about the affair. It only recently relaxed censorship to allow Israel-based journalists to report that Israeli aircraft attacked...

SEOUL (AFP) - A top North Korean official is to visit Syria, the country's official media said on Saturday, amid fears the two countries are collaborating on a secret nuclear programme. Choe Thae-Bok, chairman of the communist country's rubber-stamp Supreme People's Assembly, left on Saturday for a foreign trip which will also take him to Italy, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.