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Syria Razed Military Site Hit By Israel

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The Washington Post

Published: October 26, 2007

WASHINGTON - A mysterious Syrian military facility that was reportedly the target of an attack by Israeli jets last month has been razed, according to a new satellite image that shows only a vacant lot in the place where Syria was recently constructing what some U.S. officials believe was a nuclear reactor.

The new photograph, taken by a commercial satellite Wednesday, suggests that Syrian officials moved quickly to remove evidence of the project after it was damaged by Israeli bombs on Sept. 6, said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a nonprofit research group.

'They are clearly trying to hide the evidence,' Albright said. 'It is a trick that has been tried in the past and it hasn't worked.'

The construction site is in Syria's western desert near the village of At Tibnah, about 90 miles from the Iraqi border. Commercial satellite photos of the site in early August, before the Israeli attack, showed a tall, boxlike building under construction a few hundred yards from the Euphrates River.

Some U.S. officials and nuclear experts said the building appeared to be a nuclear reactor, one that closely resembled a North Korean reactor capable of producing enough nuclear material for one bomb per year.

Syria denied it was attempting to build a nuclear reactor, but acknowledged Israel had bombed what it called a military target inside its borders.

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