Given all the recent frenzy over whether Israel attacked a nuclear facility of some kind, or something else, in Syria in September I think it bears remembering that Syria was not a client of Dr Khan; though not due to lack of availability on the part of Dr Khan.
Let’s read what Mark Hibbs wrote in the September 24 issue of Nuclear Fuels:
Senior Syrian officials said on September 21 that the IAEA Department of Safeguards routinely monitors reports of any activity at Syrian phosphate-containing locations.
The IAEA is fully aware of our phosphate extraction sites and activities,said Ibrahim Othman, director general of Syria’s Atomic Energy Commission.
…
During 2007, rumors circulated that Syria obtained know-how from a procurement network run by former Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who admitted in 2004 that he had assisted clandestine programs in Iran, Libya, and North Korea.
The rumors assert that around 1998 Khan was in Syria for a lengthy academic exchange visit and at that time provided know-how on centrifuge enrichment to Syria.
Othman told Platts last week that he had been asked by Syria’s Minister of Higher Education about nine years ago to confer with Khan.
The ministry wanted to invite Khan to come to Syria as a professor, and I told them, ‘No,’ he said.