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September 6: Operation Orchard

lawrencebush
September 6, 2011

Israeli warplanes destroyed a suspected nuclear facility in eastern Syria on this date in 2007. “Operation Orchard” involved years of investigation by Israeli intelligence of Syrian nuclear weaponry development with North Korea and Iran, two on-the-ground reconnaisance mission by Israeli commandos, and an airstrike involving as many as eight planes. Immediately after, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert relayed a message to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (via Turkish Prime Minister Recept Tayyip Erdogan) that Israel did not want to publicize the operation and was still interested in peace with Syria. Syria rapidly buried the destroyed site, which the International Atomic Energy Agency officially confirmed to be a nuclear reactor in April, 2011.

“The analysis was conclusive that it was a North Korean-type reactor, a gas graphite model . . . Israel estimates that Iran had paid North Korea between $1 billion and $2 billion for the project.” --Hans Ruhle, former chief of the planning staff of the German Defense Ministry