Traces Of Syrian Nuclear Reactor Vanish.

The New York Times on Oct. 25 reported that new commercial satellite photographs showed a Syrian site believed to have been attacked by Israel on Sept. 6 no longer bore any obvious traces of what analysts said was a partly built nuclear reactor. The paper said two photographs, taken on Oct. 24 from space by rival companies, showed the site near the Euphrates River to have been wiped clean since August, when imagery showed a tall square building there measuring about 45 metres on a side.

Syria reported an attack by Israel in early September; the Israelis have not confirmed that. Senior Syrian officials continue to deny that a nuclear reactor was under construction, insisting Israel hit a largely empty military warehouse. But the paper quoted "federal and private analysts" as saying the images suggested that the Syrian authorities rushed to dismantle the facility after the strike.

The analysts called the action a tacit admission of guilt. It quoted a "senior intelligence official" as saying: "It's a magic act - here today, gone tomorrow. It doesn't lower suspicions, it raises them. This was not a long-term decommissioning of a building, which can take a year. It was speedy. It's incredible that they could have gone to that effort to make something go away".

The NYT said: "Any attempt by the Syrian authorities to clean up the site would make it difficult, if not impossible, for international weapons inspectors to determine the exact nature of the activity there". It said IAEA officials in Vienna hoped to analyse the satellite images and ultimately inspect the site in person. It quoted David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a private group in Washington which made public a report on the Syrian site earlier in the week, as saying the expurgation of the building was inherently suspicious, adding: "It looks like Syria is trying to hide something and destroy the evidence of some activity. But it won't work. Syria has got to answer questions about what it was doing".

The paper said: "The striking difference in the satellite photographs taken just months apart surprised even some outside experts who were skeptical that Syria might be developing a nuclear program". It quoted Joseph Cirincione, an expert on nuclear proliferation at the Centre for American Progress in Washington, as saying: "It's clearly very suspicious. The Syrians were up to something that they clearly didn't want the world to know about". He said the photographic evidence "tilts toward a nuclear program", but did not prove that Damascus was building a reactor. Besides, he said, even if Syria was developing a nuclear programme, it was still years away from being operational and thus not an imminent threat.

The paper said the images of the Syrian site were taken by DigitalGlobe, in Longmont, Colorado, and SPOT Image Corp, in Chantilly, Virginia. They showed "just a smooth, unfurrowed area where the large building once stood". The desolate Syrian site is on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River about 140 km north of the Iraqi border and 10 km north of the desert village of at-Tibnah. An airfield is nearby. The new images show that the tall building is gone, but they still show a secondary structure and a pumping station on the Euphrates. Nuclear reactors need water for cooling.