From Fox News:

WASHINGTON — Congressional intelligence committees will be told Thursday that North Korea was helping Syria build a plutonium-producing nuclear reactor before Israeli warplanes bombed the site last September.

North Korea has long been suspected of helping Syria advance its secret nuclear program, but both countries deny it. Pyongyang says it has never spread its nuclear expertise beyond its borders.

Both House and Senate panels for the first time will be given details by the Bush administration of how North Korea was helping Syria construct a reactor similar to its facility at Yongbyon, in the west-central part of the country, according to a government official who spoke on condition of anonymity. That reactor has in the past produced a small amount of plutonium, which can be a component in nuclear weapons.

Israeli warplanes reportedly hit the site last Sept. 6, destroying what news reports then described as a nuclear facility.

When asked about the attack, a U.S. official told FOX News: “If there was an undeclared nuclear facility destroyed before it could go online… that’s a good thing. And, it points to good intelligence gathering.”

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