Israel admits to 2007 bombing of suspected Syrian nuclear site as 'message' to others

The Israeli military has formally acknowledged its destruction of a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007, saying the air strike removed a major threat to Israel and the region and was a "message" to others. The Israeli military's announcement was followed up by a release of newly declassified materials including photographs and cockpit video said to show the moment that an air strike destroyed the Al-Kubar facility in the desert near Deir-al-Zor, more than 480 km (300 miles) inside Syria. The UN atomic watchdog declared in 2011 that the Syrian site was "very likely" to have been a nuclear reactor, adding that information provided to it suggested that it was being built with North Korean assistance. The timing of Israel's decision to go public and justify the strike more than a decade ago comes after repeated calls in recent months by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the United States and international community to take tougher action on Syria's ally, Iran. Israel’s intelligence minister, Israel Katz, said on Twitter: “The (2007) operation and its success made clear that Israel will never allow nuclear weaponry to be in the hands of those who threaten its existence - Syria then, and Iran today.”

The Israeli military described in detail events leading up to the night of Sept 5-6, 2007, in which, it said, eight warplanes, F-16s and F-15s, carried out the mission after taking off from the Ramon and Hatzerim air bases and flying to Deir al-Zor region, 450 km northwest of Damascus. In 2008 the United States presented what it described as intelligence showing that North Korea had helped Syria with “covert nuclear activities.” At the time Syria dismissed the accusations as part of a campaign to discredit the Damascus government. Intelligence minister, Israel Katz, said earlier on Twitter: “The (2007) operation and its success made clear that Israel will never allow nuclear weaponry to be in the hands of those who threaten its existence - Syria then, and Iran today.”

Iran, which says its nuclear program has only peaceful aims, signed a 2015 deal under which it accepted curbs on its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief. Netanyahu shares Donald Trump’s view that world powers needed to scrap or rewrite the 2015 accord with Tehran that curbs its nuclear ambitions, as he believes it to be ineffective. Syria, a signatory of the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), has always denied that the site was a reactor or that Damascus engaged in nuclear cooperation with North Korea. In defending the strike, it notes that Islamic State group jihadists later overran much of Deir Ezzor during Syria's civil war, while also saying that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad "in the past used chemical weapons against his own citizens." “Everyone in the Middle East would do well to internalise this equation.”

Israel had acted before against the nuclear ambitions of its neighbours, notably in 1981 when it attacked a reactor under construction in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
Israel admits for the first time that it carried out an airstrike on a suspected nuclear reactor in Deir ez-Zor Governorate, Syria, on 6 September 2007. The strike allegedly killed ten North Korean workers.