U.S. intelligence officials will show House and Senate members a videotape and other evidence supporting the case that Syria was building a nuclear reactor with North Korean assistance before it was bombed by Israel last year, a U.S. official says.
who have seen the evidence consider it "extremely compelling," the U.S. official said, adding that it was gleaned from a variety of sources, not just Israeli intelligence.
According to the
New York Times, the video also shows North Koreans working at the suspected Syrian nuclear reactor just before it was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike last September.
Until now, the administration has refused to discuss the video or the attack, other than in a highly classified briefing for a few allies and crucial members of Congress.
But senior officials in Israel and the United States have said the target was a nascent nuclear reactor that had been under construction for years. Israeli and American analysts had concluded that it was loosely modeled on the reactor North Korea used to obtain the fuel for its small nuclear weapons arsenal.
Israeli jets destroyed the site on Sept. 6, and the Syrians, after issuing some protests, bulldozed the area and constructed a building on the exact footprint of the old one. They have refused to allow international nuclear inspectors to visit the location.
These recent discoveries also complicate the on-and-off
Six Party nuclear disarmament talks over North Korea's own nuclear facilities and intentions.
The North Koreans are believed to have detonated a rudimentary
nuclear device on October 9, 2006, sparking international condemnation.
Japan imposed unilateral economic sanctions on North Korea over the nuclear test. Those sanctions
were extended earlier this month.
Congress to Get Video Evidence on Syrian Facility Bombed By Israelis
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