The Stories You Might Not Be Hearing: Israeli Intelligence Pushing Report that Syria's al Kibar Was to Produce Plutonium for Iran. Wants an Attack on Iran Soon.

Most American news sources are ignoring this though at the CBS site Political Animal's Kevin Drum is calling it a rumor which is probably as it should be.

I saw articles on this first about a week ago, but only in the European  and Israeli press in which a claim is made by German News Magazine Der Spiegel 'intellegence sources" had discovered that North Korea, Syria, and Iran were all into the deal at al Kibar, which Iran supposedly sharing in the produced plutonium.

Excerpt:

According to intelligence reports seen by SPIEGEL, the Syrian facility at Al Kibar that Israeli jets bombed last September was the site of a secret military project. The report states that North Korean, Syrian and Iranian scientists were working side by side to build a reactor to produce weapons-grade plutonium. Sources say that the Iranians were using the facility as a "reserve site" and had intended sending the material back to Tehran. While the Iranians had made great progress in the development of uranium, it is alleged that they required the help of the North Korean experts when it came to plutonium technology.

This should have hit the US newsstands within days, at least by Monday when the article was to be published Amazingly it was scooped by AFP and other European sources two days before the article appeared and. (Was it leaked from the printer's shop?).  But I waited and saw next to nothing.  A few days later a Guardian article  dealt with the subject, but by that time it had been learned that Israeli intelligence was behind the leak of info.

Excerpt Guardian "Syria planned to supply Iran with nuclear fuel, Israel says ":

Israel believes that Syria was planning to supply Iran with spent nuclear fuel for reprocessing into weapons-grade plutonium from the site it bombed last September, and which is currently being inspected by the UN's nuclear watchdog.

It's unlike the US press corps to not jump on anything that points fingers at 'evil' Iran, but apparently this time they did.

From Political Animal "Al Kibar Update "  handles it this way:

The latest — report? speculation? gossip? let's go with gossip — the latest gossip about that Syrian nuclear facility that the Israelis bombed last year is that it was actually a joint Syrian-Iranian operation

And linked from the side is a report titled "Israel Prodding U.S. To Attack Iran " which can lead to a reah "Well Duh! moment, but it is true that many Americans won't believe something until mainstream news declares it.  This report also notes that Israel might start the job itself.

Excerpt report linked immediately above:

tags: syria  israel  nuclear weapons  al kibar  

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