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A recent photo from the suspected strike site
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| By Israel Insider staff October 26, 2007 |
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| Comparison of the site on August 10 (left) and October 24 |
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Newly released commercial satellite images show a suspected Syrian nuclear facility has been razed to the ground and wiped clean since it was hit September 6th by an Israeli air strike, the AP reported.
American experts say that the cleanup will impede a proposed inquiry by international nuclear inspectors and indicates that Syria tried to conceal evidence of the facility's purposes. ''It took down this facility so quickly it looks like they are trying to hide something,'' said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, which examined the images.
An image taken Wednesday by a DigitalGlobe commercial satellite shows tractors or bulldozers and scrape marks on the ground where the building stood in photos taken before the September Israeli attack, the AP reported, as well as what appears to be a trench where Syrians might have dug up buried pipelines connecting a water pumping station to the suspected reactor building.
Albright said Syria were likely to have acted so quickly because the Israeli attack is believed to have blown a hole in the roof, which would have exposed the structures contents to spy planes and satellites and revealed whether the structure was meant to house a North Korean-style nuclear reactor, Albright said, adding that the fact that the structure got a roof so early in its construction indicates that it likely was a reactor.
''That's another bit of support that it was a reactor being built with North Korean help,'' he said. ''From what we understand, North Korea builds reactors in an old-fashioned way; the roof goes on early.'' More modern reactors leave the roof until last to allow large cranes to lift heavy equipment into place, he said. |
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