Bashar Assad
Photo: Al-Jazeera
Hiding the evidence
Reconstruction effort at bombed Syrian site likely aimed at covering up evidence
A person who is closely familiar with what happened in Syria back in September 2007 estimated Saturday night that the renewed construction work at the bombed Syrian site is not a joint Syrian-North Korean attempt to reestablish an atomic project – through which Pyongyang aimed to supply Syrian President Bashar Assad with nuclear weapons’ production means.
Rather, he estimated that the reconstruction work is part of the effort to hide what was at the site prior to the bombing.
According to assessments, these efforts are being undertaken mostly for fear that the International Atomic Energy Agency would request to visit the site. According to the estimate, it is unlikely that the Syrians will attempt to reconstruct the secret project at the exact same location and in the exact same manner, after it was uncovered in such an embarrassing fashion. If the Syrians would want to reconstruct the project, they will secretly set it up in a completely different location.
Satellite images showed that following the bombing, the Syrians engaged in massive efforts at the site and cleared the ruins of the facility that was targeted by the Air Force. Now they are building something out there that looks very much like the giant structure that was there before.
The objective of this effort, according to estimates, is two-fold: First, reinforce the official Syrian declarations that the building targeted by the Air Force was meaningless, and there we see a copy being built and it is clear that it is not a nuclear facility. Second, this enables more extensive work below the structure in order to remove from there any remnants of what was at the site before, without the sensitive feelers of Israeli and American spy satellites hovering above being able to see and document it.
Calm may be deceptive
And on the same subject, but from a different angle, sources who are following developments in Syria warn that the danger of an all-out war in the wake of the September bombing has apparently passed – yet the calm may be deceptive. We should not be underestimating Assad’s hurt pride.
In the summer of 2001, after the Air Force bombed Syrian targets in Lebanon twice in response to Hizbullah activity, Syria changed its approach to Hizbullah and from being a transfer point for Iranian weapons it turned into being the organization’s main arms supplier.
Subsequently, most of those killed in the Second Lebanon War, both soldiers and civilians, were killed by arms supplied by Assad – who realized that he cannot defeat the IDF in a conventional military confrontation.
