Newly-released satellite images of the presumed site of an Israeli air raid on Syria last month show that a large building has been completely removed.

The independent US research group, the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), obtained and analysed the photographs.

The industrial-style building may have been a nuclear reactor under construction, says the ISIS.

Syria says it never had any plans to build a nuclear reactor.

The images suggest that, for whatever reason, the Syrian authorities have gone to great length to remove any trace of the facility.

Image comparison

Just a few days ago the ISIS released satellite images of a facility in northern Syria that it believed was the target of an Israeli air strike on 6 September.

The images pre-dated the attack.

But they showed both a large industrial building and a pumping station near the Euphrates river that the organisation believed could well have been a nuclear reactor under construction.

The images, though, were far from conclusive.

Now the ISIS has come up with a more recent image of the same site taken on 24 October, more than six weeks after the alleged air attack.

The image shows that the suspected reactor building has been completely removed and the ground scraped clean.

In its report, the ISIS says that a comparison of the before and after images effectively confirms that this site was indeed the target of the Israel raid.

It argues that "dismantling and removing the building at such a rapid pace dramatically complicates any inspection of the facilities and suggests that Syria may be trying to hide what was there."

The ISIS report also raises the question as to whether Syria might be in breach of its safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Under that, it would have an obligation to notify the UN's nuclear watchdog of any plans to construct a new nuclear facility.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7063135.stm