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(IsraelNN.com) The Arabic Al Jazeera television network has given its viewers an inside look at Hizbullah tunnels used in the Second Lebanon War, which the network noted was a military failure for Israel. The video clips revealed that the tunnels were equipped with showers, kitchens and "were planned like a house," according to the program's anchorman Ghassan Bin Jiddu. One clip showed a restroom with a water tank and a fan for ventilation. Bin Juddo explained that it took eight months to a year to complete a tunnel.

TAMPA - TAMPA - Robert Cash Jr. said he felt like somebody was targeting his Palma Ceia home. About two weeks ago, he found a claw hammer covered with a rag in a backyard flower bed. Last week, he saw the gate to his wooden privacy fence in the 4100 block of West San Luis Street had been opened. He secured it with a new lock. "It was obvious something was about to happen," recalled Cash, 40. "You don't know what to think." About 2:50 a.m. Saturday, everything gelled. Tampa police said Cash surprised a man who had tunneled under...

Afghanistan to Ask NATO for Bigger Army Afghan officials will go to the NATO summit in Romania Thursday with a request: pay to increase our national Army by 40 percent. A bigger Army, Afghan officials argue, will allow the US and other coalition members to scale back in the coming years. This appeal comes amid pleas from the US and Canada for other NATO members to commit more to the Afghanistan mission, which many analysts say has floundered over the past year for lack of resources and a coherent strategy. France is expected to contribute another 1,000 forces and...

Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich has fuelled talk of a massive tunnel between Europe and America by forking out $160 MLN on the world’s largest drill. The 19-metre giant will be the first drill capable of boring a four-lane tunnel. The project would link Russia’s far eastern Chutoka region, which Abramovich governs, with America’s Alaska. The tunnel was first mooted by the Tsars and then in the 1990s, but both times it was dumped because of high costs. President Vladimir Putin is said to back the latest idea, as it would open up lucrative freight routes from Europe and allow Russian...

EL-ARISH, Egypt - An underground tunnel collapsed early Wednesday near Egypt's border with the Gaza Strip, burying a Palestinian smuggler alive, a security official said. Mohammed el-Bashiti and five others had nearly finished expanding the tunnel from Gaza into Egypt when the ceiling gave way, said the official, who spoke on customary condition of anonymity. The nearly 2,000-foot-long tunnel, located about 30 feet below ground, was an old one that the smugglers were attempting to renovate. El-Bashiti precipitated the collapse of the tunnel's sandy ceiling when he pushed a pole through to the surface in an effort to show his...

A 300-year-old network of smugglers tunnels thought to link houses to a river has been unearthed underneath the site of a former medieval castle, it emerged today. The mysterious 10ft deep passages were discovered by water engineers carrying out routine maintenance work on pipes below a road. The 18th Century tunnels had punched through the wall of Bridgwater Castle, which was destroyed following a Civil War siege in 1645. Smuggler's tunnel: The 18th Century passages were found by road digging water engineers They are thought to have led to cellars within the Somerset town and helped supply households with illegal...

DENVER - More than 1 billion gallons of contaminated water — enough to fill 1,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools — is trapped in a tunnel in the mountains above the historic town of Leadville and threatening to blow. Lake County Commissioners have declared a local state of emergency for fear that this winter's above-average snowpack will melt and cause a catastrophic tidal wave. The water is backed up in abandoned mine shafts and a 2.1-mile drainage tunnel that is partially collapsed, creating the pooling of water contaminated with heavy metals. County officials have been nervously monitoring the rising water pressure inside...

Japan proposes 'peace' tunnel to South KoreaJustin McCurry in Tokyo guardian.co.uk Friday February 15 2008 Politicians in Japan have proposed the construction of an 80-mile "peace" tunnel to South Korea that would boost trade and symbolise a recent warming of ties between the former enemies. The proposed tunnel, more than twice as long as the Channel Tunnel, would link Karatsu in south-western Japan and Pusan in South Korea, via two islands in the Japan Sea. It would be part of a 140-mile (230km) rail link passing through the Japanese islands of Iki and Tsushima, and making it possible to travel...

Is the U.S. Failing in Afghanistan? It was malice in wonderland at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday as Bush Administration envoys insisted things are getting better in Afghanistan, while angry lawmakers from both parties cited facts and figures showing just the opposite. Even the senior Republican on the panel, Senator Richard Lugar, found the Administration's claims wanting. "I'm not sure that we have a plan for Afghanistan," he said. Long seen as the "forgotten war" eclipsed by Iraq in U.S. priorities, Afghanistan is in the Washington spotlight this week with the release of three independent reports concluding...

GAZA, Feb. 8 (UPI) -- Israeli military officials said Friday they employed a new method to detect tunnels allegedly used for weapons smuggling to the Gaza Strip by Palestinians. The new method uses sensors in channels underground that are filled with water, an Israeli army spokesman told Israel Radio. The method is undergoing trials close to the Gaza Strip in western Negev. The tests are being hidden from the view of nearby Palestinians, Kuna reported Friday. The spokesman failed to reveal whether the new method would be put to use on borders separating Egypt and Gaza, the newspaper said.

Still in Control Pervez Musharraf was calm, confident and—despite a flurry of rumors—not about to announce his resignation. Instead, the Pakistani president's "concession" to his troubled nation was an announcement that he would allow Britain's Scotland Yard to help local law enforcement agencies with their investigation into last week's assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Speaking in a nationally televised address two hours after Pakistan's election commission announced the postponement of the ballot to Feb. 18, six weeks later than had been scheduled, Musharraf was notably deferential in his remarks about Bhutto, often invoking her "martyrdom" and extolling...

Calculating the Risks in Pakistan A small group of U.S. military experts and intelligence officials convened in Washington for a classified war game last year, exploring strategies for securing Pakistan's nuclear arsenal if the country's political institutions and military safeguards began to fall apart. The secret exercise — conducted without official sponsorship from any government agency, apparently due to the sensitivity of its subject — was one of several such games the U.S. government has conducted in recent years examining various options and scenarios for Pakistan's nuclear weapons: How many troops might be required for a military intervention in...

BAGHDAD — A network of underground tunnels near Iskandariyah used by al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) to store weapons, hide fighters and launch attacks against U.S. forces was discovered and subsequently destroyed by Coalition forces, Dec. 16. It was the first known find of a tunnel system in the Multi-National Division – Center area. Soldiers of the 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, assigned to the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division found the tunnels as they were searching an area northwest of Iskandariyah, along the Euphrates River. Immediately prior, they discovered a cache of improvised explosive device (IED) components and...

TECATE, Mexico – A high-ranking municipal police official was assassinated Tuesday in a predawn raid on his home, less than a day after a drug-smuggling tunnel and a cache of marijuana were discovered just across the border in Tecate, Ca. The Baja California state Attorney General's office said a group of heavily armed gunmen broke into the home of Jose Juan Soriano Pereira about 2 a.m. Tuesday and shot him into death. Soriano's body was found next to his bed, said state justice spokesman Ernesto Alvarez Ponce. His wife and children were unhurt. According to neighbors, the gunmen loudly smashed...

SANTA CLARITA – Authorities scrambled to locate nine drivers believed to have escaped a deadly freeway inferno as officials reopened the West Coast's main interstate Monday and offered a first look inside the blackened tunnel. Thirty-one vehicles were involved in the pileup in the curving, darkened tunnel on Interstate 5, but the California Highway Patrol has accounted for only 23 people, including two men and a 6-year-old boy who died in the fire. If all of them were at the wheel at the time of the crash, excluding the boy, that leaves nine unaccounted for drivers. The number could be...

Al Qaeda 'Re-Emerging' in Pakistan Sanctuaries The U.S. military said Tuesday it expected Al Qaeda to continue its "re-emergence" in sanctuaries in Pakistan's tribal areas from where it supported attacks in Afghanistan. Sanctuary was provided to Al Qaeda and Taliban rebels after Islamabad signed a peace deal with militants in a desperate attempt to quell the unrest in its federally administered areas in September 2006, a U.S. military official said. The militants called off the deal in July this year after Pakistani security forces raided a radical mosque in Islamabad where rebels had massed. Dozens were killed in those...

By day, Lazar Kunstmann is a typically avant-garde Parisian, an urbane, well-spoken video film editor who hangs out in the fashionable Latin Quarter. By night he inhabits a strange and secret world with its base in the tunnels beneath the French capital – the world of the urban explorers. Mr Kunstmann belongs to les UX, a clandestine network that is on a mission to discover and exploit the city’s neglected underworld. The urban explorers put on film shows in underground galleries, restore medieval crypts and break into monuments after dark to organise plays and readings. In the eyes of their...

Archeologists find ancient tunnel used by Jews to escape Roman conquest of Jerusalem The Associated PressPublished: September 9, 2007 JERUSALEM: Israeli archeologists on Sunday said they've stumbled upon the site of one of the great dramatic scenes of the Roman sacking of Jerusalem 2,000 years ago: the subterranean drainage channel Jews used to escape from the city's Roman conquerors. The ancient tunnel was dug beneath what would become the main road of Jerusalem in the days of the second biblical Temple, which the Romans destroyed in the year 70, the dig's directors, archaeology Professor Ronny Reich of the University of...

Army says underground tunnel leading to Israel uncovered near hothouse used to grow tomatoes in northern Strip. According to estimates, tunnel slated to explode under Israeli target. Southern Command: There may be additional tunnels. The IDF on Tuesday uncovered an underground tunnel leading from the Gaza Strip towards Israel, the army said Wednesday. The tunnel shaft was connected to a Gaza hothouse used to grow tomatoes and situated 700 meters from the border fence. IDF sources noted that a terror attack was foiled by uncovering the tunnel. According to estimates, Palestinians planned to use the tunnel in order to smuggle...

Passages would let creatures safely slither and hop under widened Parkway Snakes, frogs and salamanders may never be stuck in Shore traffic again. The long-planned widening of the Garden State Parkway through the Pinelands will include a series of wildlife tunnels designed to let five threatened or endangered species of reptiles and amphibians pass safely from one side of the highway to the other. The cost: $9 million. The widening project will disrupt the habitats of 14 animals on the federal or state threatened or endangered species lists, a Turnpike consultant found.

NOGALES, Ariz., June 29 — A smuggling tunnel freshly excavated under the border with Mexico was sealed Friday after a joint raid by United States and Mexican authorities. Two houses formed the ends of a smuggling tunnel that was raided Friday. The house in the foreground is in Nogales, Ariz., and the house on the Mexican side is on the other side of the fence. The cramped and wandering tunnel, which connected two homes on opposite sides of the border had no ventilation, but it was outfitted with lights and at least one drainage pump, officials from Immigration and Customs...

Federal agents executed a search warrant at a home in Nogales, Ariz., used to conceal the entrance to a recently constructed tunnel that stretched nearly 100 yards underground to a residence across the border in Mexico. The so-called Nogales passageway is one of the most extensive smuggling tunnels uncovered along the southwestern border since the discovery of a massive tunnel south of San Diego in January 2006. Since the September 11 attacks, federal authorities have discovered more than 40 cross-border tunnels along the U.S.-Mexico border in California and Arizona. U.S. authorities are conducting a $2.7 million project to fill in...

Switzerland has opened the world's longest rail tunnel on land - the 34-kilometre (21-mile) Loetschberg tunnel under the Alps. It will cut the journey time between Germany and Italy by at least a third.

May 11, 2007 U.S. Port Contractor Has Terrorist Ties A foreign company set to build a massive tunnel project at a major U.S. seaport has close ties to the government of a country that has long appeared on the State Department’s list of nations that sponsor terrorism. The French construction giant (Bouygues Travaux Publics) is the preferred contractor to build a $1 billion tunnel at the South Florida Port of Miami, the world’s top cruise ship terminal with nearly 4 million passengers annually and one of the country’s busiest cargo ports with about one million containers a year. It turns...

JUNEAU -- A proposal for another big construction project is gathering headlines across the world. No, we're not talking about a $30 billion pipeline to send natural gas to the Lower 48. This is bigger: A $10 billion to $12 billion tunnel under the Bering Strait linking Alaska and Russia. And another $50 billion to lay railways to make the tunnel usable.

Two incomplete tunnels were discovered along the U.S.-Mexico border in what authorities described as a failed attempt to sneak people into the U.S. illegally. Each tunnel was about 3 feet wide, 3 feet high and 5 feet underground, said Frank Marwood, assistant special agent in charge of investigations at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Diego. They were about 44 yards apart, near San Diego's Otay Mesa border crossing. The passages, discovered Wednesday in a joint effort by U.S. and Mexican authorities, are among dozens found along the border in recent years, many clustered around San Diego and Nogales,...

BEIJING (AP) - Rescuers are trying to reach six workers trapped underground after a subway construction site for the 2008 Beijing Olympics collapsed, but hopes for their survival are slim, the official Xinhua News Agency said Thursday. The accident occurred Wednesday morning on the No. 10 line, which runs through the main Olympics compound in northwest Beijing, Xinhua said. The collapsed section covers an area of about 215 square feet and is about 36 feet deep, it said. Debris has been cleared away and rescuers were trying to reach the missing workers, but experts fear there is little chance they...

Just heard eyewitness report on Australian radio station that truck has 'blown up' in Melbourne's citylink tunnel. Tunnels are closed, smoke is being seen coming from smoke stacks, but little confirmed information as of yet. The citylink tunnels are major transport infrastructure. If something has exploded in one, it could be very serious.

United States City planningTunnel vision Feb 22nd 2007 | SEATTLE From The Economist print editionMayor and governor are mud-wrestling over Seattle's waterfront   APThere's a great view here somewhere IT SHOULD be among the most beautiful cityscapes on the west coast: a mural of distant mountains, piers jutting into sun-flecked Elliott Bay and giant orange cranes plucking containers from freighters. Overlooking Seattle's waterfront, however, is a noisy 1950s elevated highway in hideous grey concrete.The elevated highway—known in Seattle simply as “the viaduct”—is also a hazard. It was damaged by an earthquake in 2001, and engineers believe that another quake...

Excerpt - A Hamas militant died Sunday while digging an underground tunnel to be used in the Islamic group’s fight against Israel, Hamas said in a statement. The group did not identify the location of the tunnel. ~ snip ~

/begin my translation N. Korea: A Railroad Tunnel Collapsed near Suspected Nuclear Test Site (Japan's) Yomiuri Shimbun reported on Oct. 12 that a railroad tunnel near N. Korea's suspected nuclear test site collapsed on Oct. 9 possibly as a result of the blast. According to the report, quoting sources in Seoul, Baek-am Tunnel, located near Baek-am Station, Baek-am County, Yanggang Province, collapsed after N. Korea announced its nuclear test. The tunnel is 50 km(31 miles) away from the suspected test site(according to S. Korean Intelligence) of Sang-pyong-ri, Kimchaek City, N. Hamkyong Province. Baek-am Station is located at a mid-point of...

Palestinian sources say explosion collapses tunnel under Gaza-Egypt border early trapping five al-Aqsa members inside Palestinian sources said an explosion collapsed a tunnel under the Gaza-Egypt border early Friday, trapping five militants inside and killing at least two. The Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, a violent offshoot of the Fatah movement of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said the five were members. The group refused to say what they were doing. The militant group said the explosion was not caused by an Israeli air strike, after first blaming Israel. The Israeli military said it had no forces inside Gaza and denied involvement...

/begin my translation N. Korea Digging New Tunnels Where Nuclear Tests Are Possible 5 Tunnels in the valley of Mu-myong Mountain... could also be missile bases Kim Jong-tae Intelligence agencies have learned that N. Korea is digging five new tunnels suspected to be a missile base in the valley of Mu-myong Mountain(2851 ft), Shi-jung County, Jagang Province, N. Korea. They are looking into it carefully. In particular, they do not rule out the possibility that the tunnels could be used for nuclear test. Furthermore, they also received intelligence that there are uranium-enrichment facilities at Hwa-pyong County, Jagang Province, and now...

Tunnels called ready for nuclear test September 22, 2006 - North Korea has constructed an underground tunnel for possible use in a nuclear weapons test, a Grand National Party lawmaker with close ties to the intelligence community said yesterday. Chung Hyung-keun cited sources in the National Intelligence Service for his claim. He said a shaft 700 meters (0.4 miles) deep has been sunk into Mount Mantap in North Hamkyong province with a horizontal tunnel running nearby. Mr. Chung was in Washington, where he was lobbying against the quick transfer of wartime control of the Korean military back to Seoul. Mr....

BOSTON -- The family of a woman who was killed in a Big Dig tunnel when concrete ceiling panels fell onto her car spoke out about the wrongful death lawsuit they filed. Milena Del Valle's family accused the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority and a number of design firms of negligence. Del Valle was killed on July 10 as she and her husband, Angel Del Valle, drove through the Interstate 90 connector tunnel. "That night, on July 10, we were going to the airport, and we were on the way to pick up my brother and his wife from Puerto Rico, and...

Exclusive An ambulance racing to get a heart attack victim to the hospital was snagged in Big Dig tunnel gridlock, turning what should have been a four-minute trip into a desperate 24-minute ordeal that ended with the man’s death, public safety and transportation sources said. (snip) A police escort led the ambulance through the westbound Ted Williams Tunnel and onto surface streets through South Boston, a transportation source said. A public safety source said, however, that due to gridlock in the westbound side, the ambulance was led through the eastbound side of the I-90 Seaport connector tunnel, which was closed...

An ambulance racing to get a heart attack victim to the hospital was snagged in Big Dig tunnel gridlock, turning what should have been a four-minute trip into a desperate 24-minute ordeal that ended with the man’s death, public safety and transportation sources said. The victim - a 64-year-old man - was found by a state trooper at the limousine parking lot at Logan International Airport’s Terminal A suffering a heart attack about 3:52 p.m. yesterday.

BOSTON (AP) - Gov. Mitt Romney ordered an immediate shutdown of the Ted Williams Tunnel's eastbound lanes Thursday as the investigation continued into a deadly collapse of ceiling panels in a connecting tunnel. No reasons for the closure were immediately released. The governor has been overseeing the inspections of the Big Dig tunnels since shortly after the fatal accident July 10 that killed Milena Del Valle, 38, as she and her husband drove to the airport. The Ted Williams Tunnel was a key part of the city's massive Big Dig project and leads from Boston to Logan International Airport. The...

Senior Northern Command officer tells Ynet that soldiers killed in Lebanon Wednesday were part of mission aimed at uncovering 40-meter deep poured concrete bunkers along border. Despite challenges, army determined to complete operation A senior IDF Northern Command officer told Ynet that Hizbullah has set up an extensive underground bunker network not far from the Israeli border. On Wednesday two IDF soldiers from the Magellan unit were killed and nine more soldiers were wounded during army operations aimed at uncovering the bunkers. Hizbullah terrorists were hiding out in the fortified underground bunkers some 40 meters (roughly 120 feet) underground, along...

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks during the opening ceremony for an underground tunnel in Tehran July 15, 2006. REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday his country had every right to produce atomic fuel, showing no sign of backing down on nuclear work before a U.N. Security Council meeting. Diplomats have said the world body will meet this week to draft a resolution demanding Iran end sensitive nuclear work which the West fears could be used to make bombs. "Having a nuclear fuel cycle is the Iranian nation's obvious right," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying...

Governor Michael S. Dukakis, whose administration hired Big Dig manager Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff, yesterday attributed problems on the huge construction project to later administrations. Dukakis, the last Democrat to hold the Massachusetts governor's office, told a television interviewer last night that he had urged Governor William F. Weld, a Republican, to ask Frederick P. Salvucci, transportation secretary under Dukakis, "to stay on and run that project for you." "Well, he didn't do that," Dukakis said of Weld on WGBH's "Greater Boston." "So we've had a series of people over there who aren't bad people," Dukakis said, "but they didn't have anywhere...

SAN JOSE, COSTA RICA - The mayor of the Costa Rican city that Big Dig victim Milena Del Valle called home is calling on Bay State officials to fulfill the devoted mom’s dream of bringing her three children to America. “Make it easy for them,” demanded the mayor of San Jose, Johnny Araya Monge, last night. Last week’s tunnel disaster robbed the children of their mother, he told the Herald, it shouldn’t also steal their chance of becoming U.S. citizens. “I think this family must receive help for legal reasons, for institutional responsibility and for humanitarian reasons,” the mayor added....

Field tests by construction workers indicated that bolt-and-epoxy fasteners might not support the multi-ton ceiling panels in the Interstate 90 connector tunnel, but the firm that designed the tunnel persuaded Big Dig officials to use the system anyway, law enforcement officials said yesterday. [...] The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority and lead management contractor Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff approved both decisions as the tunnel ceiling was built in 1999. As the connector tunnel ceiling was under construction, Modern Continental Corp. workers expressed concerns after field tests indicated the bolt fixtures were unsound, law enforcement officials said. [...] The workers' concerns were sent to Modern...

This is some film footage of "Minutemen" authors Jim Gilchrist and Jerome Corsi examining a tunnel that goes under the U.S. / Mexico border. This is a revealing little video. It's very disturbing to think how porous our nation's borders are... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1U9iq-E5zA

Inspectors have found at least 60 faulty bolt fixtures that supported the ceiling of the Interstate 90 connector tunnel in the same section where concrete ceiling panels fell and crushed Milena Del Valle, state officials said yesterday. Though the tunnel passed at least one previous safety inspection, the faulty bolt fixtures -- which Turnpike Authority officials yesterday called ``suspect" and ``compromised" -- went unnoticed until the 38-year-old's death Monday night spurred an unprecedented criminal investigation of the Big Dig's safety. State officials were uncertain whether the faulty bolt fixtures found in the approximately 50 ceiling panels along 200 feet of...

We now join Fat Matt Amorello in progress at one of yesterday’s three, or was it four, press conferences. The $209,000-a-year chairman of the Mass Turnpike Authority is in full meltdown mode as he tries to explain an unfamiliar word to the media. The word is tieback. “Tieback is the the structure that holds the uh, a series of uh uh, shelves that hold up uh as if uh a da - uh uh a shelf where you tie the the the structure to the ceiling and then you place these concrete piles on the uh pie - uh panels...

Motorists reportedly were forced to line up and pay to get out of a chaotic fire scene in England's Birkenhead Tunnel after a taxi exploded. One witness said panicking drivers had to line up as long as 10 minutes while toll operators continued to charge vehicles as flames engulfed the taxi, the Liverpool Echo said. A motorist said the tunnel emergency phone wouldn't work although Merseytravel, the tunnel's operator, insisted the phones were all working.

U.S. authorities yesterday found what they believe was an incomplete cross-border tunnel, about 75 yards from a tunnel discovered Monday. Unlike the tunnel found earlier this week, this one had no detectable exit in the United States. It extended about 10 feet north from the border fence, to the west of the tunnel found Monday, and never surfaced, said Lauren Mack, spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. U.S. authorities didn't enter the primitive dirt tunnel because it appeared to be unstable, so they weren't able to determine where it may have gone on the Mexican side, Mack said. However,...

SAN DIEGO – U.S. authorities dug Monday into a crudely constructed cross-border tunnel that exits near a San Ysidro parking lot. Investigators could not say whether the tunnel had been completed. Drug cartels are suspected of building the cross border tunnels as a means of smuggling narcotics into the United States. The tunnel was found Friday, said Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but authorities disclosed little information on its discovery. “It was a result of an ongoing investigation,” Mack said Monday. “The investigation continued until agents opened it up at 6 a.m. this morning.” The...

Little known outside police circles, the Tunnel Task Force came to light with the Jan. 24 discovery of the passageway that was used to haul tons of marijuana almost half-a-mile from Mexico. Based in San Diego, the team pools the resources of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection, and it draws support from a special U.S. military unit. U.S. authorities have identified tunnels as an emerging threat to homeland security in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.. Since then at least 40 have been uncovered linking cities...