A former member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard told U.S. intelligence officials that Iran had financed North Korean moves to develop a nuclear weapons program on Syrian soil, the Associated Press reported March 19.

Gen. Ali Reza Asghari, a former Iranian deputy defense minister who defected to the United States in February 2007, provided a detailed account of Iran’s efforts to create a nuclear weapons program in Syria.

This account is described by Hans Ruehle, a former chief of the planning staff for the German Defense Ministry, in a report published in the Swiss daily Neue Zuercher Zeitung. According to the report, Iran’s sponsorship of Syria’s nuclear weapons program came as a surprise to both Israel and the U.S.

“The biggest surprise … was the assertion that Iran was financing a secret nuclear project of Syria and North Korea,” wrote Ruehle. “No one in the American intelligence scene had heard anything of it. And the Israelis who were immediately informed also were completely unaware.”

In September 2007, Israeli F-15I jets destroyed a top-secret nuclear reactor in Syria that was capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium. It has been widely thought that the North Koreans were operating on their own initiative to help the Syrians develop a nuclear weapons program. This confession and other intelligence reports, however, reveal that both the North Koreans and the Syrians were actually helping Iran develop a nuclear weapons program on Syrian soil.

An article in Germany’s Spiegel on June 23, 2008, stated (emphasis ours):

According to intelligence reports seen by Spiegel, the Syrian facility at Al Kibar that Israeli jets bombed last September was the site of a secret military project. The report states that North Korean, Syrian and Iranian scientists were working side by side to build a reactor to produce weapons-grade plutonium. Sources say that the Iranians were using the facility as a “reserve site” and had intended sending the material back to Tehran. While the Iranians had made great progress in the development of uranium, it is alleged that they required the help of the North Korean experts when it came to plutonium technology.

Intelligence documents seen by Spiegel affirm that Iran was actively working toward the production of weapons-grade plutonium in Syria just 18 months ago. While Israel’s bold surgical strike against this facility no doubt delayed Iran’s nuclear ambitions, you can be sure those ambitions still exist.

Con Coughlin, writing for the Telegraph.co.uk last December, had this to say about Iran’s involvement in Syria’s plutonium enrichment efforts:

[S]yria’s experimentation with nuclear proliferation has more to do with its strategic alliance with Tehran than any pretensions the Assad regime might entertain about becoming a nuclear superpower. In response to the West’s increasing pressure on Iran over its uranium enrichment program, Tehran has stepped up its military cooperation with Damascus, and has signed a mutual defense pact. That has resulted in the Iranians promising to provide the Syrians with their Shahab-3 ballistic missile system. …Now, it appears that the Syrians are quietly helping the Iranians with their nuclear weapons program. …Western security experts believe that many North Korean scientists who were filmed working on the Syrian project were also frequent visitors to Iran’s top-secret atomic facilities.

Iran is the king of the Middle East and is committed to the destruction of Israel and the West. Nations like Syria are serving as surrogates of Iran—assets the Iranian regime can use to protect its nuclear weapons program and threaten non-Islamic nations.

For more information on Iran’s nuclear goals, read “Ahmadinejad’s Apocalyptic Ambitions” and “Close to Armageddon.”