Diplomats indicate enriched uranium found at al-Kibar site bombed by Israel in 2007

          The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) found uranium at an alleged secret Syrian nuclear reactor site that was bombed by Israel last year, a diplomat told Deutsche Presse-Agentur in Vienna on Monday. Another diplomat indicated that IAEA inspectors had found traces of the metal during their first visit to the al-Kibar site in the Syrian desert in June, which the Israeli Air Force bombed in September 2007. Both diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity. The Vienna-based nuclear watchdog is in the process of finishing its first written report on Syria since the United States provided the IAEA with intelligence in the spring indicating that Syria had almost completed a reactor, possibly with the help of North Korean experts. "It wasn't natural uranium," the Western diplomat said, adding that this indicated it might have been enriched. While uranium occurs naturally in soil, it has to undergo several chemical processes before it can be used in nuclear reactors. Syria maintains that Israel bombed a conventional military site that was unrelated to nuclear uses. The finding did not mean that Syria had stored nuclear fuel at al-Kibar, and there were several ways that uranium particles could have ended up there, the second diplomat said. (00,28)