The North Korea Theory Lives!

When Blake Hounshell summoned a doctor, the prognosis wasn't good, and Joshua Landis, one of its early proponents, has begun planning the funeral. This morning, however, the Sunday Times said:

"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...'

"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...

"But intelligence sources suggested it was a highly successful Israeli raid on nuclear material supplied by North Korea."

Unlike previous articles, this goes back to Israeli sources. I'm not sure why they would want to implicate North Korea in something if North Korea were not, in fact, implicated. At the very least, the connection now clearly merits maintaining as a possibility.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)