[Dialogue] 'USAF Struck Syrian Nuclear Site'

[Harry Wainwright]

Published on Friday, November 2, 2007 by The Jerusalem Post (Israel)
<http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1192380718519&pagename=JPost%2FJ
PArticle%2FShowFull>  

'USAF Struck Syrian Nuclear Site'

by Jerusalem Post Staff

The September 6 raid over Syria was carried out by the US Air Force, the
Al-Jazeera Web site reported Friday. The Web site quoted Israeli and Arab
sources as saying that two strategic US jets armed with tactical nuclear
weapons carried out an attack on a nuclear site under construction.

The sources were quoted as saying that Israeli F-15 and F-16 jets provided
cover for the US planes.

The sources added that each US plane carried one tactical nuclear weapon and
that the site was hit by one bomb and was totally destroyed.

At the beginning of October, Israel's military censor began to allow the
local media to report on the raid without attributing their report to
foreign sources. Nevertheless, details of the strike have remained clouded
in mystery.

On October 28, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the cabinet that he had
apologized to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan if Israel violated
Turkish airspace during a strike on an alleged nuclear facility in Syria
last month.

In a carefully worded statement that was given to reporters after the
cabinet meeting, Olmert said: "In my conversation with the Turkish prime
minister, I told him that if Israeli planes indeed penetrated Turkish
airspace, then there was no intention thereby, either in advance or in any
case, to - in any way - violate or undermine Turkish sovereignty, which we
respect."

The New York Times reported on October 13 that Israeli planes struck at what
US and Israeli intelligence believed was a partly constructed nuclear
reactor in Syria on September 6, citing American and foreign officials who
had seen the relevant intelligence reports.

According to the report, Israel carried out the report to send a message
that it would not tolerate even a nuclear program in its initial stages of
construction in any neighboring state.

On October 17, Syria denied that one of its representatives to the United
Nations told a panel that an Israeli air strike hit a Syrian nuclear
facility and added that "such facilities do not exist in Syria."

A UN document released by the press office had provided an account of a
meeting of the First Committee, Disarmament and International Security, in
New York, and paraphrased an unnamed Syrian representative as saying that a
nuclear facility was hit by the raid.

However, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency, SANA said media reports,
apparently based on a UN press release, misquoted the Syrian diplomat.

C 2007 The Jerusalem Post

Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org 

URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/02/4985/

 

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