Israel Matzav

Damascus car bombing an Israeli job after all?

The London Arabic daily Asharq Alawsat is reporting that - surprise! - Syria is continuing its pursuit of nuclear weapons, but that it has now adopted the Iranian model of having multiple sites spread out throughout the country. Please note the last part of this report. It claims that both the assassination of Mohamed Suleiman (the IAEA's man in Damascus) and last Saturday's car bombing in Damascus were connected to Syria's nuclear aspirations.

According to the report, Israeli military sources told the London-based paper that following the reported airstrike against the nuclear reactor at Al-Kibar on September 6, Syria changed course and began a nuclear program based on the Iranian model of simultaneously building multiple facilities in various sites throughout the country.

The Jerusalem Post could not confirm the report.

The newspaper quoted the sources as saying that like the bombed nuclear reactor, the newest facilities were being built with the backing of North Korea. Furthermore, last month, a group of Iranian experts arrived in Syria and also joined the project, the sources told the paper.

The sources emphasized that Israel would not sit idly by and allow such activity to proceed unhindered, adding that in the past year, three separate events have proved that a "nuclear armed Syria is a red line which can't be crossed." The three events, the Israeli sources said, were the reported destruction of the first nuclear reactor, the assassination of top Syrian adviser Brig.-Gen. Muhammad Suleiman in early August and the car bomb explosion in Damascus last weekend which killed 17 people.

According to the report, the sources claimed that Suleiman's death and the car bombing were directly connected to the nuclear issue. The Syrian adviser, they said, was responsible for the nuclear project in the country, and among the fatalities in car bomb was another high-ranking Syrian official involved in the nuclear program.

Hmmm. Maybe Israel was behind that car bombing after all.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:06 AM