Unlikely: "Israelis seized nuclear material in Syrian raid"

According to the Times:

Israeli commandos seized nuclear material of North Korean origin during a daring raid on a secret military site in Syria before Israel bombed it this month, according to informed sources in Washington and Jerusalem.

Why unlikely? The article was co-written by Uzi Mahnaimi.

In May 2006 he wrote:

Israel foils plot to kill Palestinian president

A HAMAS plot to assassinate Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has been thwarted after he was tipped off by Israeli intelligence.

Hamas’s military wing, the Izza Din Al-Qassem, had planned to kill Abbas at his office in Gaza, intelligence sources said.

Of course this was denied, but as far as I know--this was never substantiated.

Neither was this:

Israel Planning 'Ethnic' Bomb as Saddam Caves In

ISRAEL is working on a biological weapon that would harm Arabs but not Jews, according to Israeli military and western intelligence sources.

The weapon, targeting victims by ethnic origin, is seen as Israel's response to Iraq's threat of chemical and biological attacks. Yesterday Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi leader, backed away from the brink of war and agreed to resume co-operation with the inspection teams seeking his suspected chemical and biological weapons plants.

Winds of War already discredited that report based on the fact that

a significant proportion of the Jews in Israel ARE ethnic Arabs. They fled there from Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, and other countries where their families had lived for many hundreds of years.

Joe's Dartblog and Meryl Yourish have written about Mahnaimi--and Meryl links to Israel Matzav and Allison Kaplan Sommer, who also write about his reliability.

There are still unanswered questions about what happened--but this article is not going to answer them.

Technorati Tag: Uzi Mahnaimi.