The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Vienna

The UN atomic watchdog said Wednesday it could not yet determine if a building in a remote site in the Syrian desert bombed by Israeli planes last year was a nuclear reactor, as the United States claims.

Nevertheless, puzzling anomalies had been found at the site, the International Atomic Energy Agency said.

"We are not in a situation to say that it was a nuclear reactor," an official close to the IAEA said, adding at the same time that "we cannot exclude that it was" one. The watchdog addressed the matter in a restricted report circulated to the agency's board of governors on Wednesday, a copy of which was obtained by AFP. "While it cannot be excluded that the building in question was intended for non-nuclear use, the features of the building t along with the connectivity of the site to adequate pumping capacity of cooling water are similar to what may be found in connection with a reactor site," the IAEA said.

Furthermore, traces of uranium had been found by IAEA investigators in environmental samples taken from the site, known alternatively as either Al-Kibar or Dair Alzour, which was razed to the ground by Israeli planes on September 6, 2007.

"The analysis of these particles indicates that the uranium is anthropogenic. ie. that the material was produced as a result of chemical processing," the report said.

"No such nuclear material had so far been declared in Syria's inventory t In principle, that sort of nuclear material should not exist there. It's not usual to find man-made uranium in sand," a senior UN official said.