Syria attack related to nukes?

The WaPo says the attack on Syria last week was to stop them from building nuclear weapons of some sort.

U.S. sources reported this week that Israel had recently provided the United States with evidence — known by the code name “Orchard” — that North Korea has been cooperating with Syria on a nuclear facility. But many outside nuclear experts have expressed skepticism that Syria, which has mostly focused on chemical and biological weapons, would be conducting nuclear trade with North Korea.

[…] The White House and the State Department generally have declined to either confirm or deny reports of the Syria-North Korea link, but one top official yesterday seemed to fan the flames. Andrew Semmel, acting deputy assistant secretary of state for nuclear nonproliferation policy, told the Associated Press yesterday in Rome that North Koreans were in Syria and that Damascus may have had contacts with “secret suppliers” to obtain nuclear equipment. “There are indicators that they do have something going on there,” he said.

State Department officials declined to comment on Semmel’s remarks.

Meanwhile, a prominent U.S. expert on the Middle East, who has interviewed Israeli participants in a mysterious raid over Syria last week, reported that the attack appears to have been linked to the arrival three days earlier of a ship carrying material from North Korea labeled as cement.

The expert, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid compromising his sources, said the target of the attack appears to have been a northern Syrian facility that was labeled an agricultural research center on the Euphrates River, close to the Turkish border. Israel has kept a close eye on the facility, believing that Syria was using it to extract uranium from phosphates.

The expert said it is not clear what the ship was carrying, but the emerging consensus in Israel was that it delivered nuclear equipment. The ship arrived Sept. 3 in the Syrian port of Tartus; the attack occurred Sept. 6 under such strict operational security that the pilots flying air cover for the attack aircraft did not know details of the mission. The pilots who conducted the attack were briefed only after they were in the air, he said.

One article I read said that they can’t rule out our old pal Chaka Khan, sorry, A. Q. Khan’s “network” involvement. The not good part: The ease with which our enemies are transferring nuclear technology to one another. The good part: Apparently, they’re getting caught.

Exit thought: Israel’s recent successful launch of a spy satellite may have had a lot to do with catching this.