Samples taken from a Syrian site bombed by Israel on suspicion it was a covert nuclear reactor contained traces of uranium combined with other elements that merit further investigation, diplomats said Monday.
The diplomats - who demanded anonymity because their information was confidential - said the uranium was processed and not in raw form, suggesting some kind of nuclear link.
But one of the diplomats said the uranium finding itself was significant only in the context of other traces found in the oil or air samples taken by International Atomic Energy Agency experts during their visit to the site in June.
Syria has a rudimentary declared nuclear program revolving around research and the production of isotopes for medical and agricultural uses, using a small, 27-kilowatt reactor, and the uranium traces might have originated from there and inadvertently been carried to the bombed site. But taken together, the uranium and the other components found on the environmental swipes "tell a story" worth investigating, said the diplomat.
The second diplomat said the findings would figure in a report on Syria that will be presented to the IAEA's 35-nation board next week ahead of a scheduled two-day board meeting starting Nov. 24.
Attempts to reach IAEA spokespeople after office hours for comment were unsuccessful.
Diplomats already told The Associated Press late last month that air and soil samples taken at the site bombed last year by Israeli warplanes had turned up traces of elements that the agency felt needed to be followed up.
The findings are important after months of uncertainty about the status of the investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Preliminary results of the environmental samples collected from the site by an IAEA team were inconclusive, adding weight to Syrian assertions that no trips beyond the initial IAEA visit in June were necessary.
The U.S. says the facility hit by Israeli warplanes more than a year ago was a nearly completed reactor that - when on line - could produce plutonium, a pathway to nuclear arms.
But Damascus denies running a covert program.
Ibrahim Othman, Syria's nuclear chief, has said his country would wait for final environmental results before deciding how to respond to repeated IAEA requests for follow-up visits to the one in June, when the samples were collected
Lebanese authorities have arrested five militants suspected of involvement in attacks in Syria and Lebanon and of belonging to an Al Qaeda-inspired group, security sources said on Monday.
The Lebanese army confirmed in a statement it had detained five people who "are involved in terrorist acts". Army troops and security men made the arrests in the past four days in the northern city of Tripoli and the nearby Palestinian refugee camp of Beddawi. They coordinated with the Palestinian Fatah faction, which captured and handed over a suspect in the southern camp of Ain al-Hilweh, the sources said.
All the militants are said to belong to Fatah al-Islam, a group crushed by the army last year in a 15-week battle in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon. At least 430 people were killed, including 170 soldiers and 220 militants. Syrian state television last week showed 12 alleged members of Fatah al-Islam confessing that they helped plan a suicide car bombing in Damascus that killed 17 people in September.
Ahmed Khaled al-Itr, a known militant, was arrested after his name came up in the confessions. Fatah al-Islam sympathisers were linked to attacks on the Lebanese army earlier this year. The militant arrested in Ain al-Hilweh was directly linked to Al Qaeda, the security sources said.
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
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Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
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trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Lebanese authorities have arrested five militants suspected of involvement in attacks in Syria and Lebanon and of belonging to an Al Qaeda-inspired group, security sources said on Monday. 
