Syria Fires on Israeli Warplanes

[QueEx]

The nuclear watchdog is checking US spy
satellite images of Syrian site hit by Israeli
warplanes on Sept. 6 for signs of secret nuclear activity

DEBKAFile
October 19, 2007

Diplomatic sources reported to AP that US intelligence agencies had sent the satellite images to the Inernational Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. Its experts have found nothing to substantiate the claim that the site hit was a secret nuclear facility.

DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources report that the credibility of the data Israel presented to Washington before the air strike continues to be questioned in some Washington quarters. They contend that, even if the target was a nuclear facility under construction, it would not have posed a threat for years. One purpose of this argument is to belittle Israel’s intelligence findings and detract from questions about how other agencies and the nuclear watchdog missed them. Another is to put the Bush administration on the spot for approving the Israeli air attack in order to deter it from a military strike against Iran.

Friday, Oct. 19, two days after President George W. Bush said an Iranian nuclear bomb could lead to World War III, The Washington Post reported that Syria had begun dismantling the remains of a bombed site near the Euphrates River in an attempt to prevent it coming under international scrutiny. It bears the “signature,” said the paper, “of a small but substantial nuclear reactor, one similar in structure to North Korea’s facilities.”

The WP adds: The bombed facility is different from the one Syria displayed to journalists last week to support its claim that Israel had bombed an empty building.

DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources have reported from Day One of the bombing that
the structure Israel bombed was located between the Euphrates and Lake Assad and that the Syrians misled correspondents by showing them a site at Deir al-Azur. Our military sources also refuted Damascus’ claim that Israeli bombers had ejected unmarked fuel tanks over Turkey. They were dropped by the Turkish air force, as Syrian president Bashar Assad was informed during his visit to Ankara this week. The genuine Israel fuel tanks with Hebrew markings were shown this week by Al Arabiya TV.

DEBKAfile’s sources: The “no comment” line to which the US and Israel are sticking is having the desired effects, which are:

1. To keep Syria in the dark about the amount of intelligence garnered by the US and Israel on its nuclear activities.

2. To entangle the Assad regime in its own untruths, which are spun in an effort to conceal the location that was struck and disguise its true nature.​

The Syrian version is crumbling piece by piece each time another authentic element is published, at the heavy cost to Assad’s prestige at home and abroad.

http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=4694

 

[QueEx]

`

The Washington Post article referred to above:

Syrians Disassembling Ruins at Site Bombed by Israel, Officials Say
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/18/AR2007101802549.html

`

 

[Makkonnen]

so if syrian agents blow up shit in Israel its all good too right? the problem with doing shit like this is sooner or later the advantage will disappear for Israel and then all this type of shit will be in the minds of their neighbors

when the next holocaust begins they can say they deserved it

 

[QueEx]

b
u
m
p

 

[QueEx]

<font size="5"><center>Syria 'fires on Israel warplanes'</font size><font size="4">
Syria has said its air defences opened fire
on Israeli warplanes after they violated
its airspace in the north of the country</font size></center>

An Israeli F16C fighter jet lands at the Ramat David
Israeli air force base in 2006. Syria has said its air
defences opened fire on Israeli warplanes which had
violated Syrian airspace at dawn, ratcheting up the
tensions between the neighbouring foes.
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5i5c880pdp8fS4M5-vVocPVMii0lA


BBC News
Thursday, 6 September 2007

Syrian officials said the defences forced the jets to drop ammunition over deserted areas and turn back, according to the official news agency, Sana.

Israel's military said it would not comment on the reports.

Israel and Syria remain technically at war and tensions between them have been rising in recent months.

The Syrian government has insisted that peace talks can be resumed only on the basis of Israel returning the Golan Heights, which it seized in 1967.

Israeli authorities, for their part, have demanded that Syria abandon its support for Palestinian and Lebanese militant groups before talks can begin.

'Military messages'

A Syrian spokesman said the Israeli aircraft had flown into Syrian airspace from the Mediterranean Sea at around 0100 local time on Thursday morning, Sana reported.

They were then engaged by Syrian air defence forces in the Tall al-Abyad, an area 160km (100 miles) north of Raqqa and near the border with Turkey, witnesses said.

"Air defence units confronted them and forced them to leave after they dropped some ammunition in deserted areas without causing any human or material damage," the spokesman said.

Pilots sometimes jettison extra fuel to make their aircraft lighter and easier to manoeuvre.

Syria's Information Minister, Mohsen Bilal, told al-Jazeera TV that his government was "seriously studying the nature of the response".

"Israel in fact does not want peace," he said. "It cannot survive without aggression, treachery and military messages."

Tensions

Officials in Damascus said Syrian forces last fired at Israeli warplanes in June 2006, when they flew over the summer residence of the Syrian president in Lattakia, while he was inside.

Over the past few months, the leaders of both countries have both stressed that they do not want war.

But both sides have also been preparing for possible conflict.

In June, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert insisted his country did not want war with Syria, and that he had communicated this to Damascus through diplomatic channels.

He also repeated his warning that a "miscalculation" could spark hostilities between the two.

Mr Olmert's statement came after the Israeli military staged major exercises in the Golan Heights.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6981674.stm

<font size="4">
Its all over the news <u>TODAY</u>;

But the matter was first posted on this board on <u>SEPTEMBER 6, 2007</u>

and some in Congress are upset that they didn't know; WTF
</font size>

 

[nyyyyce]

Will Syrian mystery site be solved?

By Paul Reynolds
World affairs correspondent, BBC News website


UN nuclear weapons inspectors hope this weekend to begin solving the mystery of the Syrian building attacked by the Israelis last September and which, according to the CIA, was a nuclear reactor under construction.

However, since the structure has since been completely demolished, the evidence might be elusive.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, said: "It is doubtful we will find anything there now, assuming there was anything in the first place."

map

Mr ElBaradei has also cast doubt on Syria's ability to construct and run such a complex nuclear process.

"We have no evidence that Syria has the human resources that would allow it to carry out a large nuclear programme," he told al-Arabiya television.

He has also said that "no nuclear material" had been introduced at the site. So it is highly unlikely that there will be no signs of any radioactivity there.

"Don't expect too much from this trip," said Mark Fitzpatrick, nuclear expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "But the IAEA has in the past found things that the hosts didn't expect, as in North Korea, so it's possible Syria will be surprised."

Relying on Syria

The inspectors do have photos provided by the Americans. These allegedly show the inside of the building and the suspected reactor. But a lot will also depend on what the Syrians say.


SEQUENCE OF EVENTS
6 Sept 2007: Israel bombs site in Syria
1 Oct: Syria's President Assad tells BBC site was military
24 Oct: New satellite images show site now bulldozed clear
24 April 2008: US claims Syrian site was nuclear reactor
22 June: IAEA due to visit Syria to investigate

Nuclear power in Middle East
Images of suspected site

Led by the IAEA chief inspector Olli Heinonen, the inspectors arrive in Syria on Sunday and will stay until Tuesday.

They could ask to see the architect's drawings for the building, and ask to question the architect and the construction engineers. They could ask to see rubble from the building, and take samples, especially from any surviving parts of the suspected nuclear reactor.

They will in any case ask the Syrians what the building was for, if it was not, as the Bush administration claimed, "a covert nuclear reactor in its eastern desert capable of producing plutonium". Plutonium can be used to construct a nuclear bomb.

"We are convinced, based on a variety of information, that North Korea assisted Syria's covert nuclear activities. We have good reason to believe that reactor, which was damaged beyond repair on 6 September of last year, was not intended for peaceful purposes," the White House said in April this year.

Syrian denials

Syria has said that the site, at al-Kibar, was a military building under construction and was not a nuclear facility.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said that Syria does not have a nuclear weapons programme.

Syria is a member of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which bars it from making nuclear weapons.


The IAEA has in the past found things that the hosts didn't expect... so it's possible Syria will be surprised
Mark Fitzpatrick
IISS
A test of Syrian co-operation will be whether the inspectors gain access to three other sites. Syria has reportedly told other Arab countries that these are military bases not connected with the suspect site at al-Kibar.

One site is said by diplomatic sources, who spoke to the Associated Press news agency, to be suspected of having "equipment that can reprocess nuclear material into the fissile core of warheads".

Wider worries

Behind the IAEA visit, there is the wider issue of what to do if a country is suspected of trying to develop nuclear weapons secretly. The IAEA is furious that it was not alerted by Israel or the United States about evidence concerning the al-Kibar site before it was bombed. The IAEA thinks it could have established what was going on there.

The IAEA is anxious to preserve its leading role in the investigation of possible violations of the NPT.

The Americans are doubtful that the IAEA can do the job properly. It took US and British intelligence operations to get Libya to admit to secret nuclear activities and abandon them in 2003.

The Israelis have their own solutions. They bombed Iraq's nuclear plant in 1981 and did the same to the Syrian construction last year.

There is plenty of talk in Israel that at some stage Israel will decide to attack Iran's nuclear enrichment plant. The New York Times has reported that a major Israeli air exercise involving more than 100 F-15 and F-16 aircraft took place in early June and was apparently designed to develop long-range bombing techniques.

Paul.Reynolds-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7463044.stm

 

[QueEx]

<font size="5"><Center>
Diplomats: Uranium found from suspect Syrian site</font size></center>


Associated Press
By GEORGE JAHN
November 10, 2008


VIENNA, Austria (AP) — Diplomats say uranium has been found in environmental samples from a Syrian site bombed by Israel on suspicion it was a covert nuclear reactor.

The diplomats say that the uranium — combined with other elements found in the samples — merits further investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

One of the diplomats told The Associated Press that the findings and other details will be presented by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei in a report to the IAEA's 35-nation board next week.

The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because their information was confidential.



http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ibbvKrJ2zpXsF5F9tM_rtfLwd8MAD94C9Q380

 

[QueEx]

Syria questioned again

Suspicions loom as the International Atomic Energy Agency finds uranium particles at a site Syria says was a traditional military facility

18 - 24 June 2009
Issue No. 952

A recent report issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) revealed that uranium traces had been found in a second site near Damascus, additional to the alleged nuclear reactor site Al-Kibar in northern Syria. The IAEA made it clear that it doesn't believe Syria's claims about Al-Kibar, which was bombed by Israel in September 2007. Damascus says the site was a traditional military facility, not a nuclear reactor.

This is the second time man-made uranium has been discovered in Syria. IAEA inspectors found the particles in a small reactor in Damascus used for teaching and research that is inspected by the IAEA annually. It is used to conduct examinations and analyses of medical and agricultural products, to purify water, and to produce steel, but it does not have any known capacity to produce nuclear energy. The IAEA says that the kind of uranium found there shouldn't have been there, and that it differs from the kind of nuclear material found in the declared Syrian store.

The IAEA says that it asked the Syrian authorities to offer explanation for the presence of this uranium, and according to its report, Syria responded to the IAEA's questions on the uranium and its source, but did not respond to many of the other questions posed by the agency on the issue. Syria has not offered any justification for the presence of the particles or for their origin, and has refused to discuss related satellite images. It has suggested that the IAEA's analyses are wrong, and that the satellite images presented by Washington were edited.

IAEA Director-General Mohamed El-Baradei wrote in the report submitted to member states that the information submitted by Syria until now does not sufficiently support its assurances over the nature of the site. The IAEA is investigating the veracity of reports that Syria has nearly completed building a nuclear reactor of North Korean design with the aim of producing plutonium that can be used to create a nuclear bomb.

The IAEA says the uranium particles found at Al-Kibar in the Deir Al-Zur region, the related satellite images, and the purchasing activities of Syria all still need to be clarified. In the report submitted to the IAEA Board of Governors, it is stated that: "in order for the IAEA to complete its evaluation, Syria must cooperate more transparently." Analysis of environmental samples taken from the same site has shown the presence of additional uranium particles produced chemically and not listed among the types of nuclear materials publicly acknowledged by Syria to be in its possession.

Syria says that the source of these uranium particles is the missiles that were used to destroy Al-Kibar site during the 2007 Israeli raid. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Muallim has said that both the original destroyed facility and the current reconfigured one at the site are "military facilities with no relation to any type of nuclear activity". Israel has sent a letter to the IAEA rejecting Syria's statements.

El-Baradei says that General Mohamed Suleiman, who was killed in Syria under uncertain circumstances in August 2007, was the IAEA's interlocutor. He had accompanied inspectors to the site, and his death has only complicated matters.

According to the IAEA, El-Baradei's report on the continued investigations of Al-Kibar and the new suspected site near Damascus will be a priority on the agenda of the regular, biannual Board of Governors meeting scheduled for mid-June. Yet observers don't expect the board to reach a conclusion on the matter given divisions between IAEA members.

Israel has criticised what it considers the "inability" of the IAEA to effectively monitor the nuclear programmes of Iran and Syria. The Israeli Nuclear Energy Committee holds that the international agency's report "supports suspicions that Syria is trying to conceal evidence of covert nuclear activities that have taken place in the Deir Al-Zur site in the country's east... Israel calls for a correct and credible investigation of Syrian political manoeuvres."

Israel says -- and some IAEA inspectors agree -- that the Syrians "exerted great efforts to change the nature of the place" and removed all indications that "might suggest that there was a North Korean nuclear reactor on the site". According to some IAEA inspectors, satellite images show that hasty efforts to remove traces were carried out.

Some IAEA inspectors say that Syria recently agreed to an IAEA delegation visiting the Syrian site that was bombed, but that it reneged when the IAEA informed it that the monitors would also inspect two other suspected sites. Syria then changed its position and declined welcoming the delegation, which to some IAEA inspectors confirms that Syria has something to hide, leaving them to suspect that there are a number of other sites in which military-based nuclear activities are taking place.

The Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot previously reported that IAEA inspectors believed North Korea had built a factory near the Syrian-Iraqi border in which Syrians are working with plutonium and uranium. It reported a Western intelligence official as saying that following the US invasion of Iraq, a convoy of three large trucks reached the desert facility and is suspected of having carried materials from the nuclear programme former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein had allegedly been trying to develop. The paper wrote that a third facility was located near Damascus.

Some circles close to the Syrian government say that bringing up this issue at this particular time is politicisation by the IAEA. They remind observers of the attention given to alleged Iraqi nuclear activity in 2003, and stress that in addition to its political aims, raising this issue now is an attempt to deprive Syria of about $200 million in aid the IAEA Board of Governors is considering offering to it, leading it instead to reject the aid just as it previously rejected aid to Iran.

These circles say that the IAEA knows better than anyone else that Syria's scientific, technical, human and logistical capacities are incapable of producing a nuclear programme -- this beyond the fact that Syria has no desire to advance towards nuclear production. Moreover, nuclear arms would be useless in any Syrian-Israeli war since the proximity of Damascus to Tel Aviv means that nuclear arms couldn't be used without causing harm to their user.

Syria's government and political circles generally don't seem concerned about the IAEA report. Although they regret that the report submitted to the Board of Governors may deprive them of possible financial or technical aid, especially given their ambitions to develop peaceful uses of nuclear energy, they are not worried about the political outcomes or about sanctions placed by the IAEA or the UN Security Council. The report is speculative and according to the Syrian government is not based on fact.

Indeed, since it lacks evidence, it is not sufficient to serve as justification for issuing sanctions of any kind against Syria. At the same time, Syria's relations with European countries are currently normalised and even "warm", as described by Syrian government circles. Syria also believes it is on the verge of reaching an agreement with the US administration on a new roadmap towards normalising their relations, and this further distances the spectre of sanctions for Syria.

The paucity of evidence and the breaking of European and US isolation imposed on Syria together form the basis of Syria's reassurance. Some Syrian circles have indirectly pointed out that certain IAEA inspectors and top officials are working to support suspicions of Syria and to create a political uproar unrelated to the IAEA but which serves other parties and political ends.

Diplomats in Vienna -- where the IAEA is based -- say that Syria informed the IAEA that it has built a missile facility in the desert region that was bombed by Israel, and that this fact supports the Syrian refusal to allow the IAEA further access for national security reasons. At the same time, however, Syrian officials worry that allowing the IAEA to visit other sites will open new doors that will allow parties within and beyond the agency to send unlimited delegations to Syria, with and without reason. For this reason Syria is refusing to allow visits to other sites.


http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/952/re3.htm

 

[QueEx]

Israel Says It Destroyed Syrian Nuclear Reactor in 2007

Operation is a message to countries like Iran who threaten country’s existence, tweets Israeli intelligence minister

Images provided by the Israeli army reportedly showing an aerial view of a suspected Syrian nuclear
reactor during bombardment in 2007. The country’s military has disclosed details about the 2007
operation for the first time. Photo: -/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images


Wall Street Journal
By Dov Lieber
March 21, 2018


Israel on Wednesday acknowledged that it destroyed a Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007, ending a decadelong silence over the airstrikes in what it said was a warning for an increasingly bellicose Iran.

The Israeli military disclosed for the first time details about the 2007 operation, releasing previously classified information, pictures and video of the airstrikes. Israel Katz, the country’s chief of intelligence, said on Twitter that the decision to destroy the Syrian reactor “sends a clear message: Israel will never allow nuclear weapons to countries like Iran who threaten its existence.”

In recent months, Israel has increasingly criticized Iranian attempts to set up military bases and weapons factories in Syria, warning it would strike out against any attempts by the Islamic Republic and its allies to entrench on its border. Russia and Iran are the main backers of the Assad regime in the yearslong Syrian civil conflict and Tehran has vowed to destroy the Israeli state.

Tensions escalated last month after Israel’s military said one of its jets was shot down by antiaircraft missiles during strikes on Syrian targets. Those strikes came after Israel said it intercepted an Iranian drone launched from Syria that had infiltrated its airspace.

The Syrian regime couldn’t be reached for comment. It has previously denied that the bombed site was a nuclear reactor. An official at Iran’s United Nations mission in New York didn’t respond to a request for comment.

It was widely thought that the airstrikes in 2007 were carried out by Israel but its formal disclosure on Wednesday comes as U.S. President Donald Trump considers changing or scotching the Iranian nuclear deal in May. Israel is pushing for strict reforms, including more robust inspections of Iranian facilities and an indefinite period to restrict Iran’s nuclear program.

Mr. Trump has threatened to not sign an extension of sanctions waivers for Iran on May 12, a move that could lead to the unraveling of the nuclear deal.

The agreement saw most international sanctions on Iran lifted in exchange for strict but impermanent restraints on its nuclear work. Iranian officials have warned they could pull out of the deal if the U.S. withdraws.

Germany, France and Britain are seeking a compromise with the U.S. by pushing for new sanctions on Iran over its long-range ballistic missile program.


The Israeli army Wednesday released a trove of newly-declassified material from the 2007 attack, dubbed as “operation outside of the box.”

This included what appeared to be video from the cockpit at the moment Israeli jets bombed what Israeli officials said was the Al-Kubar reactor, located in the Deir Ezzour desert region about 450 kilometers northwest of the Syrian capital.

Israel determined that the reactor, which was being built with the help of North Korea, was less than a year away from being able to produce plutonium before being destroyed, the documents said.

Amos Yadlin, who was head of the Israeli army’s intelligence at the time of the strike, said in a phone conference with journalists that the operation had two goals: “no core, no war.”

Mr. Yadlin explained Israel feared the operation could lead to an all-out war with Syria. To avoid this outcome, Israel didn’t take responsibility for destroying the reactor, giving room for Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad to deny the incident ever took place.

In 1981, Israel destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor in a similar operation.

“The message from the attack on the [Syrian] nuclear reactor in 2007 is that the State of Israel will not allow the establishment of capabilities that threaten Israel’s existence,” said Israeli Army Chief Gadi Eizenkot in a video message.

—Rory Jones and Asa Fitch contributed to this article.



https://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-says-it-destroyed-syrian-nuclear-reactor-in-2007-1521632151


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