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Tip from defector said to lead to Israeli strike on suspected reactor in '07 Thurs., March. 19, 2009 GENEVA - A top-ranked Iranian defector told the United States that Iran
was financing North Korean moves to make Syria into a nuclear weapons
power, leading to the Israeli air strike that destroyed a suspected
secret reactor, a report said Thursday.
The article in the daily Neue Zuercher Zeitung goes into detail about an
Iranian connection and fills in gaps about Israel's Sept. 6, 2007, raid
that knocked out Syria's nearly completed Al Kabir reactor in the
country's eastern desert. Ali Reza Asghari, a retired general in Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards
and a former deputy defense minister, "changed sides" in February 2007
and provided considerable information to the West on Iran's own nuclear
program, said the article, written by Hans Ruehle, former chief of the
planning staff of the German Defense Ministry.
Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here "The biggest surprise, however, was his assertion that Iran was
financing a secret nuclear project of Syria and North Korea," he said.
"No one in the American intelligence scene had heard anything of it. And
the Israelis who were immediately informed also were completely unaware." Ruehle, who did not identify the sources of his information, publishes
and comments on security and nuclear proliferation in different European
newspapers and broadcasts and has held prominent roles in German and
NATO institutions. U.S. intelligence had detected North Korean ship deliveries of
construction supplies to Syria that started in 2002, and American
satellites spotted the construction as early as 2003, but regarded the
work as nothing unusual, in part because the Syrians had banned radio
and telephones from the site and handled communications solely by
messengers — "medieval but effective," Ruehle said. Ship intercepted Intensive investigation followed by U.S. and Israeli intelligence
services until Israel sent a 12-man commando unit in two helicopters to
the site in August 2007 to take photographs and soil samples, he said. "The analysis was conclusive that it was a North Korean-type reactor," a
gas graphite model, Ruehle said. Other sources have suggested that the reactor might have been large
enough to make about one nuclear weapon's worth of plutonium a year. Just before the Israeli commando raid, a North Korean ship was
intercepted en route to Syria with nuclear fuel rods, underscoring the
need for fast action, he said. "On the morning of Sept. 6, 2007, seven Israeli F-15 fighter bombers
took off to the north. They flew along the Mediterranean coast, brushed
past Turkey and pressed on into Syria. Fifty kilometers from their
target they fired 22 rockets at the three identified objects inside the
Kibar complex. "The Syrians were completely surprised. By the time their air defense
systems were ready, the Israeli planes were well out of range. The
mission was successful, the reactor destroyed," Ruehle said. No comment from Israel Israel estimates that Iran had paid North Korea between $1 billion and
$2 billion for the project, Ruehle said. Israel has refused from the beginning to comment on, confirm or deny the
strike, but after a delay of several months Washington presented
intelligence purporting to show the target was a reactor being built
with North Korean help. Iranian officials were not available for comment because of a national
holiday. In general, Iran has been silent about the Syrian facility
bombed by Israel. Syrian officials could not be reached for comment. But
Syria has denied the facility was a nuclear plant, saying it was an
unused military building. It has also denied any nuclear cooperation
with North Korea or Iran. The International Atomic Energy Agency earlier this year said U.N.
inspectors had found processed uranium traces in samples taken from the
site. Syria has suggested the traces came from Israel ordnance used to hit the
site, but the IAEA said the composition of the uranium made that
unlikely. Israel has denied it was the source of the uranium. Syria has told diplomats that it built a missile facility over the ruins
of the site.
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