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Israel's Strike On Syria Yields A Nuclear Tale

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By MARK MAZZETTI and HELENE COOPER, The New York Times

Published: September 18, 2007

WASHINGTON - The attack Sept. 6 by Israeli warplanes inside Syria struck what Israeli intelligence thinks was a nuclear-related facility that North Korea was helping to equip, current and former U.S. and Israeli officials say.

The details about the Israeli assessment emerged as China abruptly canceled planned diplomatic talks in Beijing that were intended to set a schedule to disband nuclear facilities in North Korea. The Bush administration has declined to comment on the Israeli raid, but during those talks U.S. officials were expected to confront the North Koreans about alleged support for Syria.

The officials said that the Israeli government notified the Bush administration about the planned attack just before conducting the raid. It is not clear whether Bush administration officials expressed support for the action or counseled against it.

Questions surrounding the raid have been the subject of intense speculation in Washington and Jerusalem, but the details remain extraordinarily murky. Officials said that access to new intelligence reports about suspected North Korean support to Syria has been confined to a small group of officials in Washington and Jerusalem.

The details about the Israeli intelligence remain highly classified, and the accounts about Israel's thinking were provided by current and former officials who generally are sympathetic to Israel's point of view. It is not clear whether U.S. intelligence agencies agree with the Israeli assessment about the facility targeted in the raid, and some officials expressed doubt that Syria has the money or the scientific talent to launch a serious nuclear program.

Current and former U.S. and Israeli officials who have received briefings from Israeli sources said on Monday that the raid was an attempt by Israel to destroy a site that Israel thought was associated with Syria's rudimentary nuclear program.

The allegations come at a particularly delicate time, with the United States and several Asian countries testing whether North Korea is serious about dismantling its nuclear production facilities and providing a full accounting of all its nuclear facilities, fuel and weapons.

North Korea tested a nuclear device in October, though the results were mixed at best.

Israel is wary of complicating continuing peace talks involving other countries in the Middle East over the future of a Palestinian state. In particular, the Bush administration has not decided whether Syria will be invited to an upcoming Middle East peace conference that is supposed to be held in Washington in November. A tense Israel-Syria standoff could further complicate that decision, Israeli and American officials said.

The strike Sept. 6 came several days after a ship with North Korean cargo tracked by Israeli intelligence docked in a Syrian port, according to the current and former officials. That cargo was transferred to the site that Israel then attacked, the officials said. It is unclear exactly what was contained in the shipment. A former top U.S. official said the Israelis had been monitoring the site for some time before the ship arrived.

It also is unclear why China decided at the eleventh hour to postpone the talks, but Beijing's decision appeared to put off what could have been a confrontation between the United States and North Korea that could have scuttled the diplomatic talks with North Korea.

Christopher Hill, the top American negotiator for the talks, already had packed his bags and was preparing to depart for Beijing when he was notified of China's decision to delay the negotiations, American officials said.

North Korea has a long relationship with Syria, mostly involving the sale of arms, particularly technology for relatively primitive missiles. It has never been caught exporting nuclear-related material to Syria or to Iran, another of its customers for missile technology.

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