Syria’s 50 tonnes of unenriched uranium missing

Bashar Assad was close to building a nuclear reactor at Al-Kibar in eastern Syria with assistance from North Korean when it was destroyed by Israel in 2007. The stock of 50 tonnes of unenriched uranium, enough for weapons grade fuel for five atomic devices, has since gone missing and may have passed to Iran, the Financial Times reports Wednesday. Fears have been triggered by signs of movement at a secret uranium conversion facility that the Syrian regime built at the town of Marj al-Sultan near Damascus. DEBKAfile: The Syrian reactor was designed on on the North Korean model at Yongbyon. Had it not been destroyed, an allied nuclear weapons production chain would have been in operation from Pyongyang through Tehran to Damascus.

 

http://www.debka.com/newsupdatepopup/3402/