Operation Outside the Box

Operation Outside the Box, also known as Operation Orchard, was an Israeli airstrike on a suspected nuclear reactor, referred to as the Al Kibar site, in the Deir ez-Zor region of Syria, which occurred just after midnight on 6 September 2007. The Israeli and U.S. governments did not announce the secret raids for seven months. The White House and Central Intelligence Agency subsequently confirmed that American intelligence had also indicated the site was a nuclear facility with a military purpose, though Syria's Assad government denied this. A 2009 International Atomic Energy Agency investigation reported evidence of uranium and graphite and concluded that the site bore features resembling an undeclared nuclear reactor. IAEA was initially unable to confirm or deny the nature of the site because, according to IAEA, Syria failed to provide necessary cooperation with the IAEA investigation. Syria has disputed these claims. Nearly four years later, in April 2011 during the Syrian Civil War, the IAEA officially confirmed that the site was a nuclear reactor. Israel did not acknowledge the attack until 2018.
The attack reportedly followed Israeli top-level consultations with the Bush administration. After realizing that the US was not willing to bomb the site after being told so by U.S. president George W. Bush, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert decided to adhere to the 1981 Begin Doctrine and unilaterally strike to prevent a Syrian nuclear weapons capability, despite serious concerns about Syrian retaliation. In stark contrast to the doctrine's prior usage against Iraq, the airstrike against Syria did not elicit international outcry. A main reason is that Israel maintained total and complete silence regarding the attack, and Syria covered up its activities at the site and did not cooperate fully with the IAEA. The international silence may have been a tacit recognition of the inevitability of preemptive attacks on "clandestine nuclear programs in their early stages." If true, the Begin Doctrine has undoubtedly played a role in shaping this global perception.
According to official government confirmation on 21 March 2018, the raid was carried out by Israeli Air Force 69 Squadron F-15Is, and 119 Squadron and 253 Squadron F-16Is, and an ELINT aircraft; as many as eight aircraft participated and at least four of these crossed into Syrian airspace. The fighters were equipped with AGM-65 Maverick missiles, bombs, and external fuel tanks. One report stated that a team of elite Israeli Shaldag special-forces commandos arrived at the site the day before so that they could highlight the target with laser designators, while a later report identified Sayeret Matkal special-forces commandos as involved.
The Israeli attack used sophisticated electronic warfare capabilities, as IAF's EW systems took over Syria's air defense systems, feeding them a false sky-picture for the entire period of time that the Israeli fighter jets needed to cross Syria, bomb their target, and return.
On 6 March 2017, the Kibar nuclear site was captured by the Syrian Democratic Forces – a U.S.-backed coalition of Kurdish and Arab militia fighters – from a retreating ISIL force in northern Deir Ezzor province.
Following the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, Syria permitted wider inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency at sites allegedly linked to the facility. In September 2025, the IAEA reported the discovery of uranium particles of anthropogenic origin at one such location.

Pre-strike activity

In 2001, Mossad, Israel's external intelligence service, was profiling newly inducted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. Visits by North Korean dignitaries, which focused on advanced arms deliveries, were noticed. Aman, Israel's military intelligence department, suggested nuclear arms were being discussed, but the Mossad dismissed this theory. In spring 2004, U.S. intelligence reported multiple communications between Syria and North Korea, and traced the calls to a desert location called al-Kibar. Unit 8200, Israel's signals intelligence and codebreaking unit, added the location to its watch list.
The Daily Telegraph, citing anonymous sources, reported that in December 2006, a top Syrian official arrived in London under a false name. The Mossad had detected a booking for the official in a London hotel, and dispatched at least ten undercover agents to London. The agents were split into three teams. One group was sent to Heathrow Airport to identify the official as he arrived, a second to book into his hotel, and a third to monitor his movements and visitors. Some of the operatives were from the Kidon Division, which specializes in assassinations, and the Neviot Division, which specializes in breaking into homes, embassies, and hotel rooms to install bugging devices. On the first day of his visit, he visited the Syrian embassy and then went shopping. Kidon operatives closely followed him, while Neviot operatives broke into his hotel room and found his laptop. A computer expert then installed software that allowed the Mossad to monitor his activities on the computer. When the computer material was examined at Mossad headquarters, officials found blueprints and hundreds of pictures of the Kibar facility in various stages of construction, and correspondence. One photograph showed North Korean nuclear official Chon Chibu meeting with Ibrahim Othman, Syria's atomic energy agency director. Though the Mossad had originally planned to kill the official in London, it was decided to spare his life following the discovery. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was notified. The following month, Olmert formed a three-member panel to report on Syria's nuclear program. The CIA was also informed and the American intelligence network joined the quest for more information. Six months later, Brigadier-General Yaakov Amidror, one of the panel's members, informed Olmert that Syria was working with North Korea and Iran on a nuclear facility. Iran had funneled $1 billion to the project, and planned on using the Kibar facility to replace Iranian facilities if Iran was unable to complete its uranium enrichment program.
In July 2007, an explosion occurred in Musalmiya, northern Syria. The official news agency, SANA, said 15 Syrian military personnel were killed and 50 people were injured. The agency reported only that "very explosive products" blew up after a fire broke out at the facility. The edition of 26 September of Jane's Defence Weekly claimed that the explosion happened during tests to weaponise a Scud-C missile with mustard gas.
A senior U.S. official told ABC News that, in early summer 2007, Israel had discovered a suspected Syrian nuclear facility, and that the Mossad then "managed to either co-opt one of the facility's workers or to insert a spy posing as an employee" at the suspected Syrian nuclear site, and through this was able to get pictures of the target from on the ground."
In mid August 2007, Israeli commandos from the Sayeret Matkal reconnaissance unit covertly raided the suspected Syrian nuclear facility and brought nuclear material back to Israel. Two helicopters ferried twelve commandos to the site in order to get photographic evidence and soil samples. The commandos were probably dressed in Syrian uniforms. Although the mission was successful, it had to be aborted earlier than planned after the Israelis were spotted by Syrian soldiers. Soil analysis revealed traces of nuclear activity. There was disagreement between CIA director Michael Hayden and Mossad director Meir Dagan about whether the site should be bombed. Hayden was fearful that this would cause an all-out war, but Dagan was sure that Assad would not react, so long as the bombing was done covertly and not publicized. Anonymous sources reported that once material was tested and confirmed to have come from North Korea, the United States approved an Israeli attack on the site. Senior U.S. officials later claimed that they were not involved in or approved the attack, but were informed in advance. In his memoir, President G. W. Bush wrote that Prime Minister Olmert requested that the U.S. bomb the Syrian site, but Bush refused, saying the intelligence was not definitive on whether the plant was part of a nuclear weapons program. Bush claimed that Olmert did not ask for a green light for an attack and that he did not give one, but that Olmert acted alone and did what he thought was necessary to protect Israel. Another report indicated that Israel planned to attack the site as early as 14 July, but some U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, preferred a public condemnation of Syria, thereby delaying the military strike until Israel feared the information would leak to the press. The Sunday Times also reported that the mission was "personally directed" by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
Three days before the attack, a North Korean cargo ship carrying materials labeled as cement docked in the Syrian port of Tartus. An Israeli online data analyst, Ronen Solomon, found an internet trace for the 1,700-tonne cargo ship, the Al Hamed, which allegedly was docked at Tartus on 3 September. By 25 April 2008 the ship was under the flag of the Comoros.
Several newspapers reported that Iranian general Ali Reza Asgari, who had disappeared in February in a possible defection to the West, supplied Western intelligence with information about the site.

Target

first reported that the airstrike targeted weapons "destined for Hezbollah militants" and that the strike "left a big hole in the desert". One week later, The Washington Post reported that U.S. and Israeli intelligence gathered information on a nuclear facility constructed in Syria with North Korean aid, and that the target was a "facility capable of making unconventional weapons". According to The Sunday Times, there were claims of a cache of nuclear materials from North Korea.
Syrian Vice-President Faruq Al Shara announced on 30 September that the Israeli target was the Arab Center for the Studies of Arid Zones and Dry Lands, but the center itself immediately denied this. The following day Syrian President Bashar al-Assad described the bombing target as an "incomplete and empty military complex that was still under construction". He did not provide any further details about the nature of the structure or its purpose.
On 14 October The New York Times cited U.S. and Israeli military intelligence sources saying that the target had been a nuclear reactor under construction by North Korean technicians, with a number of the technicians having been killed in the strike. On 2 December The Sunday Times quoted Uzi Even, a professor at Tel Aviv University and a founder of the Negev Nuclear Research Center, saying that he believes that the Syrian site was built to process plutonium and assemble a nuclear bomb, using weapons-grade plutonium originally from North Korea. He also said that Syria's quick burial of the target site with tons of soil was a reaction to fears of radiation.
On 19 March 2009, Hans Rühle, former chief of the planning staff of the German Defense Ministry, wrote in the Swiss daily Neue Zürcher Zeitung that Iran was financing a Syrian nuclear reactor. Rühle did not identify the sources of his information. He wrote that U.S. intelligence had detected North Korean ship deliveries of construction supplies to Syria that started in 2002, and that the construction was spotted by American satellites in 2003, who detected nothing unusual, partly because the Syrians had banned radio and telephones from the site and handled communications solely by messengers. He said that "The analysis was conclusive that it was a North Korean-type reactor, a gas graphite model" and that "Israel estimates that Iran had paid North Korea between $1 billion and $2 billion for the project". He also wrote that just before the Israeli operation, a North Korean ship was intercepted en route to Syria with nuclear fuel rods.