'시리아서 北 핵물질 발견'…6자회담 영향에 촉각
  
  이용수 기자 hejsue@chosun.com
  
  지난 6일 이스라엘 공군이 시리아 북부의 한 군사시설을 비밀 폭격하기 전 이스라엘 최정예 특공대가 이곳에 침투해 북한으로부터 공급된 핵 물질의 존재를 확인했다고 영국 선데이타임스가 23일 미국과 이스라엘의 정보 소식통들을 인용해 특종 보도했다.
  이는 이스라엘의 시리아 폭격 이유가 시리아와 북한간의 핵 협력을 차단하기 위해서였다는 그 동안의 보도들을 뒷받침하는 것이다.
  
   신문에 따르면 이스라엘 정보당국은 몇달 전부터 시리아 북부 ‘다이르 아즈 즈와르’의 한 군사시설에 북한 기술자와 핵 관련 물질이 있다는 첩보를 입수, 이곳을 폭격할 계획을 세워둔 상태였다.
  
  조지 W 부시(Bush) 미 대통령도 이 내용을 보고받았지만 이 시설이 핵과 관련이 있다는 확실한 증거가 나오기 전엔 폭격에 동의할 수 없다는 입장이었다.
   증거 수집을 위해 이스라엘 국방부 직할 특수부대 ‘사라예트 마트칼’ 대원들이 현장에 급파됐다. 시리아 군복 차림을 한 대원들은 이 시설에 침투, 핵과 관련된 것으로 의심되는 물질의 샘플을 빼냈다. 이스라엘로 가져와 정밀 분석한 결과, 이 물질은 북한에서 제공된 것으로 밝혀졌고 미국은 그제서야 이스라엘의 폭격을 양해했다.
  
  
  에후드 바라크(Barak) 이스라엘 국방장관은 지난 6일 이스라엘 공군 F-15기 편대에 폭격 명령을 내렸으며, 전투기 비행사들은 이륙 후에야 작전의 목적과 폭격 위치를 브리핑 받았을 정도로 작전은 극비리에 수행됐다. 이날 폭격으로 다이르 아즈 즈와르의 군사시설은 폐허가 됐으며, 현장에 있던 북한인 여러 명이 숨졌다고 이 신문은 덧붙였다.
   앞서 앤드류 셈멜(Semmel) 미 국무부 핵확산방지 담당 부차관보 직무대행은 지난 14일 “북한 기술자들이 시리아에 있다. 이는 의심할 여지가 없으며, 시리아는 (북한의) 핵 장비를 얻기 위해 이 ‘비밀 공급업자들’과 접촉했을 것”이라고 말했다.
  
  워싱턴포스트는 이스라엘 공군이 시리아에 감행한 비밀 공습은 북한 선박이 시리아 타르투스항(港)에 수상한 화물을 내려놓은 지 사흘 만에 이뤄졌다며, 이번 폭격과 북한에서 온 화물이 연관된 것으로 보인다고 15일 보도했다. 이스라엘 정보당국은 시멘트라고 표시된 이 화물이 실제로는 핵개발용 장비였으며, 폭격이 가해진 시리아 북부의 군사시설에선 우라늄 추출이 시도됐다고 판단한다.
   이런 보도와 주장에 대해 북한과 시리아는 “사실 무근”임을 거듭 강조했다.
  
  
  그러나 북한 외무성이 지난 11일 이스라엘의 시리아 공습에 대해 “매우 위험한 도발이자 시리아의 주권에 대한 침범이며 지역 평화와 안보를 위협하는 행위”라고 이례적으로 맹비난하면서 의혹은 오히려 커졌다. 또한 시리아 집권 바트당의 고위 관료인 사이드 엘리아스 다우드(Daoud)가 22일 평양에서 김영남 북한 최고인민회의 상임위원장을 만난 배경에도 관심이 쏠린다.
  
  이처럼 북한이 시리아와 핵 협력을 벌이는 것으로 의심되는 정황이 잇따라 포착되는 이유에 대해 미국 소식통들은 양국의 이해관계가 맞았음을 지적한다고 뉴욕타임스가 22일 보도했다.
  
  북한은 2·13 비핵화 합의에 따른 이행시한을 맞추기 위해 핵 프로그램 관련 요소들을 국외로 내보내려고 하고, 시리아는 북한의 이런 움직임을 저렴한 비용으로 핵개발에 착수할 기회로 본다는 것이다.
  
  미국 정부는 공식적으로는 북한과 시리아의 ‘핵 커넥션’ 의혹에 대해 확인도 부인도 하지 않고 있다. 다만 27일 베이징에서 열리는 6자회담에서 이 문제가 주요 이슈로 부각돼 회담에 부정적 영향을 미치지 않을까 노심초사하는 모습이다. 북한이 6자회담에서 이번 의혹에 대해 어떤 대응을 할지가 관심사다.
  ===========================================
  Snatched: Israeli commandos ‘nuclear’ raidUzi Mahnaimi, Tel Aviv, Sarah Baxter, Washington, and Michael Sheridan
  
  
  ISRAELI commandos from the elite Sayeret Matkal unit – almost certainly dressed in Syrian uniforms – made their way stealthily towards a secret military compound near Dayr az-Zawr in northern Syria. They were looking for proof that Syria and North Korea were collaborating on a nuclear programme.
  
  Israel had been surveying the site for months, according to Washington and Israeli sources. President George W Bush was told during the summer that Israeli intelligence suggested North Korean personnel and nuclear-related material were at the Syrian site.
  
  Israel was determined not to take any chances with its neighbour. Following the example set by its raid on an Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak 1981, it drew up plans to bomb the Syrian compound.
  
  But Washington was not satisfied. It demanded clear evidence of nuclear-related activities before giving the operation its blessing. The task of the commandos was to provide it.
  
  Today the site near Dayr az-Zawr lies in ruins after it was pounded by Israeli F15Is on September 6. Before the Israelis issued the order to strike, the commandos had secretly seized samples of nuclear material and taken them back into Israel for examination by scientists, the sources say. A laboratory confirmed that the unspecified material was North Korean in origin. America approved an attack.
  
  News of the secret ground raid is the latest piece of the jigsaw to emerge about the mysterious Israeli airstrike. Israel has imposed a news blackout, but has not disguised its satisfaction with the mission. The incident also reveals the extent of the cooperation between America and Israel over nuclear-related security issues in the Middle East. The attack on what Israeli defence sources now call the “North Korean project” appears to be part of a wider, secret war against the nonconventional weapons ambitions of Syria and North Korea which, along with Iran, appears to have been forging a new “axis of evil”.
  
  The operation was personally directed by Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, who is said to have been largely preoccupied with it since taking up his post on June 18.
  
  It was the ideal mission for Barak, Israel’s most decorated soldier and legendary former commander of the Sayeret Matkal, which shares the motto “Who Dares Wins” with Britain’s SAS and specialises in intelligence-gathering deep behind enemy lines.
  
  President Bush refused to comment on the air attack last week, but warned North Korea that “the exportation of information and/or materials” could jeopard-ise plans to give North Korea food aid, fuel and diplomatic recognition in exchange for ending its nuclear programmes.
  
  Diplomats in North Korea and China said they believed a number of North Koreans were killed in the raid, noting that ballistic missile technicians and military scientists had been working for some time with the Syrians.
  
  A senior Syrian official, Sayeed Elias Daoud, director of the Syrian Arab Ba’ath party, flew to North Korea via Beijing last Thursday, reinforcing the belief among foreign diplomats that the two nations are coordinating their response to the Israeli strike.
  
  The growing assumption that North Korea suffered direct casualties in the raid appears to be based largely on the regime’s unusually strident propaganda on an issue far from home. But there were also indications of conversations between Chinese and North Korean officials and intelligence reports reaching Asian governments that supported the same conclusion, diplomats said.
  
  Jane’s Defence Weekly reported last week that dozens of Iranian engineers and Syrians were killed in July attempting to load a chemical warhead containing mustard gas onto a Scud missile. The Scuds and warheads are of North Korean design and possibly manufacture, and there are recent reports that North Koreans were helping the Syrians to attach airburst chemical weapons to warheads.
  
  Yesterday, while Israelis were observing Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, the military was on high alert after Syria promised to retaliate for the September 6 raid. An Israeli intelligence expert said: “Syria has retaliated in the past for much smaller humiliations, but they will choose the place, the time and the target.”
  
  Critics of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, believe he has shown poor judgment since succeeding his father Hafez, Syria’s long-time dictator, in 2000. According to David Schenker, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, he has provoked the enmity of almost all Syria’s neighbours and turned his country into a “client” of Iran.
  
  Barak’s return to government after making a fortune in private business was critical to the Israeli operation. Military experts believe it could not have taken place under Amir Peretz, the defence minister who was forced from the post after last year’s ill-fated war in Lebanon. “Barak gave Olmert the confidence needed for such a dangerous operation,” said one insider.
  
  The unusual silence about the airstrikes amazed Israelis, who are used to talkative politicians. But it did not surprise the defence community. “Most Israeli special operations remain unknown,” said a defence source.
  
  When Menachem Begin, then Israeli prime minister, broke the news of the 1981 Osirak raid, he was accused of trying to help his Likud party’s prospects in forthcoming elections.
  
  Benjamin Netanyahu, who leads Likud today, faced similar criticism last week when he ignored the news blackout, revealed that he had backed the decision to strike and said he had congratulated Olmert. “I was a partner from the start,” he claimed.
  
  But details of the raid are still tantalisingly incomplete. Some analysts in America are perplexed by photographs of a fuel tank said to have been dropped from an Israeli jet on its return journey over Turkey. It appears to be relatively undamaged. Could it have been planted to sow confusion about the route taken by the Israeli F-15I pilots?
  
  More importantly, questions remain about the precise nature of the material seized and about Syria’s intentions. Was Syria hiding North Korean nuclear equipment while Pyongyang prepared for six-party talks aimed at securing an end to its nuclear weapons programme in return for security guarantees and aid? Did Syria want to arm its own Scuds with a nuclear device?
  
  Or could the material have been destined for Iran as John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, has suggested? And just how deep is Syrian and North Korean nuclear cooperation anyway?
  
  China abruptly postponed a session of the nuclear disarmament talks last week because it feared America might confront the North Koreans over their weapons deals with Syria, according to sources close to the Chinese foreign ministry. Negotiations have been rescheduled for this Thursday in Beijing after assurances were given that all sides wished them to be “constructive”.
  
  Christopher Hill, the US State Department negotiator, is said to have persuaded the White House that the talks offered a realistic chance to accomplish a peace treaty formally ending the 1950-1953 Korean war, in which more than 50,000 Americans died. A peace deal of that magnitude would be a coup for Bush – but only if the North Koreans genuinely abandon their nuclear programmes.
  
  The outlines of a long-term arms relationship between the North Koreans and the Syrians are now being reexamined by intelligence experts in several capitals. Diplomats in Pyongyang have said they believe reports that about a dozen Syrian technicians were killed in a massive explosion and railway crash in North Korea on April 22, 2004.
  
  Teams of military personnel wearing protective suits were seen removing debris from the section of the train in which the Syrians were travelling, according to a report quoting military sources that appeared in a Japanese newspaper. Their bodies were flown home by a Syrian military cargo plane that was spotted shortly after the explosion at Pyongyang airport.
  
  In December last year, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al Seyassah quoted European intelligence sources in Brussels as saying that Syria was engaged in an advanced nuclear programme in its northeastern province.
  
  Most diplomats and experts dismiss the idea that Syria could master the technical and industrial knowhow to make its own nuclear devices. The vital question is whether North Korea could have transferred some of its estimated 55 kilos of weapons-grade plutonium to Syria. Six to eight kilos are enough for one rudimentary bomb.
  
  “If it is proved that Kim Jong-il sold fissile material to Syria in breach of every red line the Americans have drawn for him, what does that mean?” asked one official. The results of tests on whatever the Israelis may have seized from the Syrian site could therefore be of enormous significance.
  
  The Israeli army has so far declined to comment on the attack. However, several days afterwards, at a gathering marking the Jewish new year, the commander-in-chief of the Israeli military shook hands with and congratulated his generals. The scene was broadcast on Israeli television. After the fiasco in Lebanon last year, it was regarded as a sign that “we’re back in business, guys”.
  
  
  
  
  From The Sunday TimesSeptember 16, 2007
  
  Israelis ‘blew apart Syrian nuclear cache’
  Secret raid on Korean shipment
  
  Uzi Mahnaimi in Tel Aviv, Sarah Baxter in Washington and Michael Sheridan
  IT was just after midnight when the 69th Squadron of Israeli F15Is crossed the Syrian coast-line. On the ground, Syria’s formidable air defences went dead. An audacious raid on a Syrian target 50 miles from the Iraqi border was under way.
  
  At a rendezvous point on the ground, a Shaldag air force commando team was waiting to direct their laser beams at the target for the approaching jets. The team had arrived a day earlier, taking up position near a large underground depot. Soon the bunkers were in flames.
  
  Ten days after the jets reached home, their mission was the focus of intense speculation this weekend amid claims that Israel believed it had destroyed a cache of nuclear materials from North Korea.
  
  The Israeli government was not saying. “The security sources and IDF [Israeli Defence Forces] soldiers are demonstrating unusual courage,” said Ehud Olmert, the prime minister. “We naturally cannot always show the public our cards.”
  
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  The Syrians were also keeping mum. “I cannot reveal the details,” said Farouk al-Sharaa, the vice-president. “All I can say is the military and political echelon is looking into a series of responses as we speak. Results are forthcoming.” The official story that the target comprised weapons destined for Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shi’ite group, appeared to be crumbling in the face of widespread scepticism.
  
  Andrew Semmel, a senior US State Department official, said Syria might have obtained nuclear equipment from “secret suppliers”, and added that there were a “number of foreign technicians” in the country.
  
  Asked if they could be North Korean, he replied: “There are North Korean people there. There’s no question about that.” He said a network run by AQ Khan, the disgraced creator of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, could be involved.
  
  But why would nuclear material be in Syria? Known to have chemical weapons, was it seeking to bolster its arsenal with something even more deadly?
  
  Alternatively, could it be hiding equipment for North Korea, enabling Kim Jong-il to pretend to be giving up his nuclear programme in exchange for economic aid? Or was the material bound for Iran, as some authorities in America suggest?
  
  According to Israeli sources, preparations for the attack had been going on since late spring, when Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad, presented Olmert with evidence that Syria was seeking to buy a nuclear device from North Korea.
  
  The Israeli spy chief apparently feared such a device could eventually be installed on North-Korean-made Scud-C missiles.
  
  “This was supposed to be a devastating Syrian surprise for Israel,” said an Israeli source. “We’ve known for a long time that Syria has deadly chemical warheads on its Scuds, but Israel can’t live with a nuclear warhead.”
  
  An expert on the Middle East, who has spoken to Israeli participants in the raid, told yesterday’s Washington Post that the timing of the raid on September 6 appeared to be linked to the arrival three days earlier of a ship carrying North Korean material labelled as cement but suspected of concealing nuclear equipment.
  
  The target was identified as a northern Syrian facility that purported to be an agricultural research centre on the Euphrates river. Israel had been monitoring it for some time, concerned that it was being used to extract uranium from phosphates.
  
  According to an Israeli air force source, the Israeli satellite Ofek 7, launched in June, was diverted from Iran to Syria. It sent out high-quality images of a northeastern area every 90 minutes, making it easy for air force specialists to spot the facility.
  
  Early in the summer Ehud Barak, the defence minister, had given the order to double Israeli forces on its Golan Heights border with Syria in anticipation of possible retaliation by Damascus in the event of air strikes.
  
  Sergei Kirpichenko, the Russian ambassador to Syria, warned President Bashar al-Assad last month that Israel was planning an attack, but suggested the target was the Golan Heights.
  
  Israeli military intelligence sources claim Syrian special forces moved towards the Israeli outpost of Mount Hermon on the Golan Heights. Tension rose, but nobody knew why.
  
  At this point, Barak feared events could spiral out of control. The decision was taken to reduce the number of Israeli troops on the Golan Heights and tell Damascus the tension was over. Syria relaxed its guard shortly before the Israeli Defence Forces struck.
  
  Only three Israeli cabinet ministers are said to have been in the know ? Olmert, Barak and Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister. America was also consulted. According to Israeli sources, American air force codes were given to the Israeli air force attaché in Washington to ensure Israel’s F15Is would not mistakenly attack their US counterparts.
  
  Once the mission was under way, Israel imposed draconian military censorship and no news of the operation emerged until Syria complained that Israeli aircraft had violated its airspace. Syria claimed its air defences had engaged the planes, forcing them to drop fuel tanks to lighten their loads as they fled.
  
  But intelligence sources suggested it was a highly successful Israeli raid on nuclear material supplied by North Korea.
  
  Washington was rife with speculation last week about the precise nature of the operation. One source said the air strikes were a diversion for a daring Israeli commando raid, in which nuclear materials were intercepted en route to Iran and hauled to Israel. Others claimed they were destroyed in the attack.
  
  There is no doubt, however, that North Korea is accused of nuclear cooperation with Syria, helped by AQ Khan’s network. John Bolton, who was undersecretary for arms control at the State Department, told the United Nations in 2004 the Pakistani nuclear scientist had “several other” customers besides Iran, Libya and North Korea.
  
  Some of his evidence came from the CIA, which had reported to Congress that it viewed “Syrian nuclear intentions with growing concern”.
  
  “I’ve been worried for some time about North Korea and Iran outsourcing their nuclear programmes,” Bolton said last week. Syria, he added, was a member of a “junior axis of evil”, with a well-established ambition to develop weapons of mass destruction.
  
  The links between Syria and North Korea date back to the rule of Kim Il-sung and President Hafez al-Assad in the last century. In recent months, their sons have quietly ordered an increase in military and technical cooperation.
  
  Foreign diplomats who follow North Korean affairs are taking note. There were reports of Syrian passengers on flights from Beijing to Pyongyang and sightings of Middle Eastern businessmen from sources who watch the trains from North Korea to China.
  
  On August 14, Rim Kyong Man, the North Korean foreign trade minister, was in Syria to sign a protocol on “cooperation in trade and science and technology”. No details were released, but it caught Israel’s attention.
  
  Syria possesses between 60 and 120 Scud-C missiles, which it has bought from North Korea over the past 15 years. Diplomats believe North Korean engineers have been working on extending their 300-mile range. It means they can be used in the deserts of northeastern Syria ? the area of the Israeli strike.
  
  The triangular relationship between North Korea, Syria and Iran continues to perplex intelligence analysts. Syria served as a conduit for the transport to Iran of an estimated £50m of missile components and technology sent by sea from North Korea. The same route may be in use for nuclear equipment.
  
  But North Korea is at a sensitive stage of negotiations to end its nuclear programme in exchange for security guarantees and aid, leading some diplomats to cast doubt on the likelihood that Kim would cross America’s “red line” forbidding the proliferation of nuclear materials.
  
  Christopher Hill, the State Department official representing America in the talks, said on Friday he could not confirm “intelligence-type things”, but the reports underscored the need “to make sure the North Koreans get out of the nuclear business”.
  
  By its actions, Israel showed it is not interested in waiting for diplomacy to work where nuclear weapons are at stake.
  
  As a bonus, the Israelis proved they could penetrate the Syrian air defence system, which is stronger than the one protecting Iranian nuclear sites.
  
  This weekend President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran sent Ali Akbar Mehrabian, his nephew, to Syria to assess the damage. The new “axis of evil” may have lost one of its spokes.
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  A tale of two dictatorships: The links between North Korea and Syria Michael Sheridan, Far East correspondent
  Deep in a tunnel under Mount Myohang, in North Korea, its regime has preserved as a museum piece the Kalashnikov assault rifle and pistols sent as gifts from President Hafez al-Assad of Syria to Kim Il Sung in the early years of their friendship.
  
  Today North Korea and Syria are ruled by the sons of their late 20th century dictators, men who share more than just a common fear of the United States and a fondness for authoritarian family rule.
  
  In recent months, Kim Jong Il and Bashar Assad have quietly ordered an increase in military and technical co-operation which has caught the attention of western and Israeli intelligence.
  
  Syria possesses the biggest missile arsenal and the largest stockpile of chemical weapons in the Middle East, built up over the last two decades with arms bought from North Korea.
  
  North Korea, which exploded a nuclear device in October last year, has become critical to Syria’s plans to enhance and upgrade its weapons.
  
  Syria’s liquid fuelled Scud-C missiles depend on “essential foreign aid and assistance, primarily from North Korean entities,” said the CIA in a report to the US Congress in 2004.
  
  “We are looking at Syrian nuclear intentions with growing concern,” the CIA director also confirmed to Congress.
  
  Both North Korea and Syria are secret police states and among the hardest intelligence targets to crack.
  
  But earlier this year, foreign diplomats who follow North Korean affairs took note of an increase in diplomatic and military visits between the two.
  
  They received reports of Syrian passengers on flights from Beijing to Pyongyang, almost the only air route into the country. They also picked up observations of Middle Eastern businessmen from sources who watch the trains from North Korea to the industrial cities of northeast China.
  
  Then there were clues in the official media.
  
  On August 14, the North Korean minister of foreign trade, Rim Kyong Man, was in Syria to sign a protocol on “co-operation in trade and science and technology.” His delegation held the fifth meeting of a “joint economic committee” with its Syrian counterparts. No details were disclosed.
  
  The conclusion among diplomats was that the deal involved North Korean ballistic missiles, maintenance for the existing Syrian arsenal and engineering expertise for building silos and bunkers against air attack.
  
  Syria possesses between 60 and 120 Scud-C missiles which it bought from North Korea over the last 15 years.
  
  In the 1990s it added cluster warheads for the Scud-Cs that experts believe are intended for chemical weapons.
  
  Like North Korea, Syria has an extensive chemical weapons programme including Sarin, VX and mustard gas, according to researchers at the Centre for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute in the US.
  
  The Scud-C is strategically worrying to Israel because Syria has deployed it with one launcher for every two missiles. The normal ratio is one to 10. The conclusion: Syria’s missiles are set up for one devastating first strike.
  
  The second cause for concern is that the Scud-C is a notoriously inaccurate weapon. It is better for scattering chemical weapons than hitting one target.
  
  Diplomats believe North Korean engineers have worked on modifying the Scud-Cs to extend their 300 mile range. That means they can be based in the deserts of eastern Syria – the area of the September 6 Israeli strike.
  
  More worrying for Israel were reports from diplomats in Pyongyang that Syrian and Iranian observers were present at missile test firings by the North Korean military last summer and were given valuable telemetry data.
  
  North Korean scientists are working on a new-generation Scud-D which would extend the range of an accurate missile strike and is of intense interest to Syria.
  
  For years, the US and Israel believed Syria was committed to a calculated strategic balance. They saw North Korean weapons sales to the Middle East as purely a source of revenue - apart from seafood, minerals and timber, North Korea is impoverished and has little else to sell.
  
  But the political risk assessment has changed. Both dictators see their regimes under threat from the United States. Both are capable of unpredictable action and little is known about the internal pressures upon their regimes.
  
  In 2003, the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said Syria had tested chemical weapons.
  
  In the same year the North Koreans twice privately threatened American negotiators with “transfer” of their nuclear weapons technology to other states.
  
  The nuclear threat in Syria was long believed dormant, as Damascus appeared to rely on a chemical first-strike as an unconventional deterrent.
  
  But in a period of détente the US and its allies concurred when China sold a 30kw nuclear reactor to Syria in 1998 under IAEA controls.
  
  American intelligence officials believe Syria then recruited Iraqi scientists who fled after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Like other countries in the region, it is believed to have renewed its pursuit of nuclear research.
  
  (The Iraq Survey group, however, concluded that there was no evidence that any of Saddam’s actual weapons were hidden in Syria).
  
  With such warnings, the Israelis and Americans intensified their scrutiny of dealings between the two – and their joint missile technology ventures with Iran, another North Korean customer.
  
  The triangular relationship between North Korea, Syria and Iran continues to perplex diplomats and intelligence analysts.
  
  One fact is that Syria has served as a conduit for the transport to Iran of an estimated 50 mln pounds worth of missile components and technology sent by sea from North Korea to the Syrian port of Tartous, diplomats said.
  
  Another fact is that Damascus and Tehran have set up a 125 mln pounds joint venture to build missiles in Syria with North Korean and Chinese technical help, they said.
  
  North Korean military engineers have worked on hardened silos and tunnels for the project near the cities of Hama and Aleppo, the diplomats added.
  
  Since the Israeli strike in eastern Syria on September 6, all sides have kept silent about the nature of the target.
  
  North Korea is at a sensitive stage of negotiations to end its nuclear weapons programmes in exchange for security guarantees and economic aid. So diplomats think it unlikely that Kim has authorized a radical step such as selling nuclear components to Syria.
  
  But nothing in the negotiations inhibits North Korea from aggressively pursuing its non-nuclear weapons sales abroad and from building alliances with other foes of the United States.
  
  And two intriguing messages from the North Koreans in the aftermath of the Israeli strike were tell-tale clues to their intense interest in the action.
  
  On September 10, four days after the raid, Kim sent a personal message of congratulations to Assad on the Syrian dictator’s 42nd birthday.
  
  “The excellent friendly and co-operative relations between the two countries are steadily growing stronger even under the complicated international situation,” Kim said.
  
  The next day, in a message that went largely un-noticed as the United States commemorated September 11, 2001, the North Koreans condemned the Israeli action as “illegal” and “a very dangerous provocation.”
  
  A foreign ministry spokesman said North Korea “extends full support and solidarity to the Syrian people.”
  
  The statement was judged important enough to become the top item issued by North Korea’s state-run news agency that day.