Israel has at last revealed who was behind the bombing. It was none other than Israel itself as per its revelation. It hid the secret for more than a decade and now it clears the doubt, about the state being the culprit.
The Israeli army announced that a number totaling eight F-16 and F-15 jets raided and bombed the facility believed to be a nuclear reactor located in Syria. The area is identified as Deir Az Zor, located about 450 km north of Damascus. The operation was a stealth one lasting more than four hours in the night on September 5 to 6, 2007.
The military command of Israel dubs the attack to be ‘Out of the Box’ and was long known to have been conducted but was under an 11-year old gag order which forbid the Israeli media from publishing the details pertaining to the secret operation.
“The message from the attack on the nuclear reactor in 2007 is that the State of Israel will not allow the establishment of capabilities that threaten Israel’s existence,” said Army Chief of Staff for Israel, Gadi Eizenkot.
“This was our message in 2007, this remains our message today and will continue to be our message in the near and distant future,” he further added.
It is still unclear whether why the army opted to disclose the crucial information at this time.
Some experts opine that the reason might be to send a warning to Iran or has been timed to coincide with the release of Ehud Olmert’s mermoir, who was then the Prime Minister of Israel during the raid.
The Israeli daily Haaretz wrote that it was the finest hour for Olmert during the operation, because of his failure in a war with Lebanon, just a year earlier.
The head of the International Atomic energy Agency (IAEA), at that time in 2011 was Yukia Amano, who said for the first time informing that the target which was destroyed by Israeli fighter jets was indeed a site built by Syria for a future reactor.
In 2011, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Yukia Amano, said for the first time that the target destroyed by Israeli warplanes was the covert site of a future nuclear reactor.
These comments which were made by Amano were countered by Syria stating that it possess no atomic assets. And this was first time when UN nuclear watchdog spoke about the issue, unequivocally.
“The facility that was … destroyed by Israel was a nuclear reactor under construction,” Amano commented.
Reports that were previously released by IAEA suggested that the structure indeed was for a nuclear reactor. And in a report published in February, Amano said that the peculiar features of the bombed structure in al-Kibar were very much similar to what may be found at nuclear reactor sites.