Occupied Jerusalem , December 24 (Saba) - A confidential cable sent on April 25, 2008 by then-US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to State Department representatives worldwide states that "on September 6 2007, Israel destroyed the nuclear reactor built by Syria secretly, apparently with North Korea''s help," according to Qatar News Agency (QNA).

This cable is included in documents leaked to the WikiLeaks website and revealed Friday by /Yedioth Ahronoth''s Ronen Bergman before its official publication on the website. The document is in fact a first official and detailed confirmation of the attack, starting with the intelligence collected before the strike, the cooperation between Israel and the United States, the troubling and harsh conclusions shared by both countries, the Israeli government''s decision to bomb Syria and the fear that President Bashar Assad would launch a war in response.

"We have avoided sharing this information with you until now for fear of and in an attempt to avoid a conflict," Rice explained. The first part of the memo details unprecedented information. "I would like to inform you that the Israeli attack was aimed at destroying the secret reactor built by Syria in a desert area in the east of the country called al-Kibar," the secretary of state wrote. "The Israeli mission was successful – the reactor was destroyed without an option of rehabilitation. Syria completed the site''s evacuation, got rid of the evidence of what existed in the area and set up a new building on the site. "We believe, based on solid evidence, that North Korea helped Syria build the reactor – and we have decided that it''s time to share more information on this matter with you." Rice elaborates on the intelligence information that preceded the attack. "Our intelligence experts are convinced that the attack targeted by the Israelis is in fact an atomic reactor of the same type built by North Korean in Yongbyon," she wrote.

Saba