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In what appears to be a warning to Iran, Israel has formally admitted that it destroyed a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007.
Until now, Israeli media had been blocked from publishing details of the reactor’s discovery and destruction – even though many of the details have already been published in the foreign press and in the memoirs of former US president George W Bush and vice-president Dick Cheney.
Intelligence minister Yisrael Katz made a direct link between the raid and the threat posed to Israel today if Iran is allowed to develop a nuclear potential.
"The operation and its success made clear that Israel will never allow nuclear weapons to be in the hands of those who threaten its existence – Syria then, and Iran today."
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Defence minister Avigdor Liberman, who was minister of strategic affairs in 2007, said that without the raid, Israel today would be facing a nuclear Syria on its border.
"Our enemies' motivation has increased in recent years, but so has the might of the Israel Defence Forces. This equation should be understood by anyone in the Middle East."
Mossad confirmed the existence of the Syrian reactor in March 2007, when the spy agency obtained photographs of the reactor that was being built with the help of North Korea, in the northeastern Deir al-Zor province, close to the Euphrates River.
In the summer, US president Mr Bush made it clear to Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert that the US would not act.
‘Begin doctrine’
Former prime minister Menachem Begin, when he decided to attack the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981, said that Israel would not allow an enemy state seeking its destruction to attain nuclear abilities. Mr Olmert, endorsing what became known as Begin doctrine, tasked the Israeli military with drawing up plans to destroy the Syrian plant before it became operational.
“On the night between September 5-6, 2007, air force fighter jets successfully struck and destroyed a Syrian nuclear reactor in development,” the Israeli army said in a statement.
“The reactor was close to being completed.”
Israel said four F-16 and four F-15 fighter jets bombed the site, dropping 24 tons of explosives on the facility.
A strict military censorship was imposed following the strike as Israel believed that keeping news of the operation as quiet as possible would help Syrian president Bashar al-Assad save face and prevent him from feeling he had to retaliate, which could have led to all-out war.
Syria has repeatedly denied that the bombed site was a nuclear reactor, initially reporting that Israeli planes entered Syrian air space but were driven away. Later it was claimed that the target of the strike was a deserted military camp.