Tokyo, Japan: Ten North Koreans helping build a suspected nuclear reactor in Syria may have died in an Israeli air raid last September, Japanese media reported on Monday.

Japanese public broadcaster NHK said the dead included officials of North Korea’s communist party.

NHK reported that at least three North Koreans survived the air strike but it is not clear what happened to them afterwards.

The United States last week released a report indicating that North Korea had links to the suspected Syrian nuclear reactor that Israel destroyed in a September 6 air strike.