Israel: North Korea Helped Syria Build Nuclear Plant

WASHINGTON — Israel's airstrike on Syria last month was directed at a nuclear reactor, a report said yesterday.

Officials said the reactor, which was in the early stages of development, was being modeled on one in North Korea.

Israeli intelligence officials have said they believed North Korea, which detonated its first nuclear device last year, was supplying nuclear expertise and materials to Syria.

It has been claimed North Korean advisors were killed in the attack, which obliterated its target.

The strike on the location in northeastern Syria on September 6 has been subject to an official news blackout by both Tel Aviv and Washington, for fear of raising tensions in the Middle East. But speculation on the nature of the target has been rife, with some defense experts and insiders saying the Syrians, who already have chemical weapons, were on the verge of producing plutonium for a nuclear weapon. The report in yesterday's New York Times gives the clearest picture yet of the daring raid, which was disclosed only after the Syrians complained about a violation of its airspace by Israel.

American officials said the Syrian reactor was identified earlier this year in satellite photographs. It appeared far further from completion than an Iraqi reactor the Israelis destroyed in 1981, and it would have been years away from producing weapons-grade plutonium.

The September 6 attack caused division within the Bush administration, with some senior aides to the president seeing it as premature.

Nations are not obliged to declare reactors to the International Atomic Energy Association while in the early stages of construction, even if they are signatories of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, as Syria is.

It is also acceptable to build a reactor for the production of electricity.

Last week, it was disclosed that Secretary of State Rice had persuaded the Israelis to delay the airstrike but that she could not object once presented with evidence of the site's existence.

It remains unclear how far Syria had progressed with the reactor or what role North Korea played — and whether a case could be made that the facility was intended to produce electricity.

Only Syria and North Korea have objected to the attack, and even then in limited terms. And the lack of negative comment from any Arab government, including Iran, points to a regional anxiety about a nuclear Syria.

Ms. Rice flew in to Israel yesterday hoping to rescue next month's troubled American-brokered Middle East peace conference.

Israel has given no clear undertakings on withdrawing from areas of the West Bank, or the division of Jerusalem, while the Palestinian Fatah leadership is unwilling to embrace the summit without those issues being addressed.