Site of Israeli attack razed in Syria

AT TIBNAH, Syria, Oct. 26 (UPI) -- A new satellite image of a Syrian military facility that was reportedly bombed by Israeli warplanes shows the site has been turned into a vacant lot.

David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a nonprofit research group, said the commercial satellite photograph suggested that Syrian officials took swift steps to remove evidence of the project -- which some U.S. officials believe may have been a nuclear reactor -- after Israel bombed the area Sept. 6, The Washington Post reported Friday.

"They are clearly trying to hide the evidence," Albright told the Post. "It is a trick that has been tried in the past and it hasn't worked."

The site -- about 90 miles from the Iraqi border, near the village of At Tibnah -- once housed a tall, box-like building a few hundred yards from the Euphrates River, satellite pictures from early August show.

“It’s a magic act -- here today, gone tomorrow,” a senior intelligence official told The New York Times. “It doesn’t lower suspicions; it raises them. This was not the long-term decommissioning of a building, which can take a year. It was speedy. It’s incredible that they could have gone to that effort to make something go away.”