http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071013/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_syria;_ylt=AhSDk.TewKXODipSqhFOfPQLewgF
Report: Israel hit Syria nuclear reactor
Sat Oct 13, 7:39 PM ET
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 a military target deep inside Syria.
In the weeks that followed the attack, U.S. officials said it was
aimed either at a nuclear or missile facility that Syria operated
jointly with North Korea.
The New York Times said the nuclear reactor was modeled on one North
Korea had used to create its stockpile of nuclear weapons fuel, though
the role of any North Korean assistance in building it remains
unclear. North Korea has denied involvement in any such activities in
Syria.
Satellite photographs detected the partly constructed Syrian reactor
earlier this year, the Times said, citing American officials.
The Syrian reactor was years away from be able to produce the spent
nuclear fuel that could be reprocessed into bomb-grade plutonium, the
newspaper said.
Syria's nuclear program has long been considered minimal, and the
country is known to have only a small research reactor.
The New York Times cited American officials as saying Israel's strike
may have been intended as a signal to Iran and its nuclear
aspirations. In 1981, Israeli warplanes destroyed an Iraqi nuclear
reactor being built by Saddam Hussein's regime.
The White House and Israeli officials declined to comment on the
report.
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