US had a 'partner' when it hit Syrian nuke reactor - CIA chief

Washington: The destruction of a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor last year was the result of an intelligence collaboration that included a "foreign partner" who first identified the facility's purpose, CIA Director General Michael Hayden said on Tuesday.

The reactor at the desert outpost of Al Kibar was targeted in an air strike on September 6, 2007 that senior US intelligence officials have said was carried out by Israel on its own initiative.

"Our foreign partnerships ... were critical to the final outcome," Hayden said in a speech for delivery to the World Affairs Council of Los Angeles.

A US intelligence official declined to specify the partner Hayden referred to or to say whether it was Israel. He said there have been no signs that Syria was trying to replace the destroyed reactor.

Israel has never given an account of the strike or formally confirmed that it took place and some Israeli officials have quietly voiced dismay at US disclosures about the strike.

"We were able last year to spoil a big secret, a project that could have provided Syria with plutonium for nuclear weapons," Hayden said.