The United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced Thursday that its investigators had found new traces of uranium in samples taken from the site of an Israeli bombing in Syria. Israel says the site housed a nuclear facility, a charge that the IAEA is investigating.
The agency found similar traces in November 2008, after announcing earlier in the year that it had found no evidence of nuclear activity in the area. In addition to discovering more uranium traces, the agency's experts have found graphite particles. Graphite had not been found at the site previously. The presence of the element could be evidence of the type of North Korean prototype that the United States says the Syrians were trying to build with help from Pyongyang, according to the Associated Press.
The latest evidence will be included in a report circulated among IAEA nations. A senior U.N. official called the new findings “significant” in an interview with Reuters. However, the IAEA investigation into Syria's alleged nuclear activity is ongoing and has not yet reached any conclusions, the official cautioned.
Israel bombed the site in September of 2007, and later provided satellite photographs as evidence of nuclear activity at the site. Syrian officials have claimed that the building bombed was either an abandoned army base or an agricultural facility. One Syrian official admitted in October of 2007 that the building targeted was in fact a nuclear facility, but his admission was quickly followed by an official denial.