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An Indian villager burrowed for 14 years with a hammer and chisel to cut a tunnel through a mountain so that his neighbours could reach nearby fields and he could park his truck outside his home. Ramchandra Das, 53, who lives in eastern Bihar state, carved a 10m-long, 4m-wide tunnel through the hill range from his village of Kewati. Das took up the Herculean task after villagers found the 7km trek over the mountain increasingly arduous. When the authorities refused to help to cut the journey time, Das began carving his way through the earth in the direction of the...

December 8, 2009 North Korean leader's 007-style secret escape tunnels revealed by defector Richard Lloyd Parry, Asia Editor The North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, has a network of 300 metre (1,000 ft) deep emergency escape tunnels connecting Pyongyang with key sites around the country, a top-level defector claims. The tunnels, reminiscent of the lair of a James Bond villain, are reported to contain railway lines, a water supply and even vegetation. According to Hwang Jang Yop, formerly North Korea’s chief political philosopher, they connect areas as far as 30 miles (50km) away from Pyongyang, enabling the country’s leaders to...

SACRAMENTO (CBS 5 / AP) ― State water officials say it could cost $10.6 billion to send water to Southern California through a proposed project of tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The Department of Water Resources presented the cost estimate Thursday to a group of state and federal agencies studying ideas to safeguard water deliveries out of the delta. Two tunnels, about 150 feet underground, are being considered as an alternative to building a proposed canal around the fragile estuary. A third tunnel would serve as an intake tunnel.

U.S. Border Patrol agents discovered a smuggling tunnel under the border in Nogales, Ariz., on Wednesday. It was the first passageway agents have found in the Tucson Sector in nearly four months. The 30-foot tunnel, 150 yards east of the DeConcini Port of Entry, was fortified on the Mexican side with shoring, but on the American side it appeared unfinished, U.S. Border Patrol spokes-man Mario Escalante said. The tunnel was not connected to the drainage system. Escalante said there was no evidence as to who was using the tunnel. "They already had an opening on the north side at the...

Hoping to protect one of the Bay Area's main water supplies after the next major earthquake, construction crews will soon embark on a job that sounds like something out of a Jules Verne novel: building a massive, 5-mile-long tunnel underneath San Francisco Bay.The project is believed to be the first major tunnel ever built across the bay.Using a giant boring machine, workers will carve a 14-foot high corridor through clay, sand and bedrock from Menlo Park to Newark as deep as 103 feet below the bay floor. They'll then run a 9-foot-high steel water pipe through the middle."All the experts...

Hamas is digging tunnels next to United Nations facilities under the assumption that the IDF will not target them during a future conflict, defense officials warned on Sunday....officials said a tunnel Hamas had been digging adjacent to a UN school in Beit Hanun had collapsed earlier this month.

BANGKOK (AP) - The recent aborted voyage of a North Korean ship, photographs of massive tunnels and a top secret meeting have raised alarm bells that one of the world's poorest nations may be aspiring to join the nuclear club—with help from its friends in Pyongyang. No one expects military-run Myanmar, also known as Burma, to obtain an atomic bomb anytime soon, but experts have the Southeast Asian nation on their radar screen. "There's suspicion that something is going on, and increasingly that cooperation with North Korea may have a nuclear undercurrent. We are very much looking into it," says...

SNIPPET: "Israeli warplanes bombard two smuggling tunnels in southern Strip early Sunday after Palestinians fire rocket at Negev on Saturday" SNIPPET: "IDF fighter jets struck two Palestinian smuggling tunnels in the southern Gaza Strip in a pre-dawn raid on Sunday. The army said that two of the tunnels had been hit but there were no reports of casualties. The strike came in response to a Qassam attack on Israel's western Negev on Saturday. The Color Red alert system was sounded in parts of the area and residents reported of hearing a loud blast. No injuries or damager were reported in...

Another tunnel apparently dug by drug smugglers has been found beneath the U.S.-Mexico border in Nogales, Ariz. Scioli said it’s the 63rd smuggling tunnel found beneath the border in the Nogales area since October 1995, and the 16th since last October.

NORTH BERGEN, N.J. - Construction began yesterday on the nation's largest transportation project, an $8.7 billion tunnel expected to double the number of commuters that can use rush-hour rail service between New Jersey and Manhattan.

That new tunnel? The one NJ Transit has been touting for years? That the Federal Transit Administration made a huge commitment to on Monday? It’s for cars. Or so Vice President Biden apparently thinks. Biden had just finished telling reporters on a conference call Monday that federal stimulus money might have gone out slower in the past few months than some people liked because, “We don’t end up with any major glitches.” Then The Record had a chance to ask about an environmental group’s complaint that Amtrak would not be able to use the new Hudson River tunnel – which...

New Jersey officials have been planning the next train tunnel under the Hudson River for so long that it is already on its third name. This month, work is scheduled to begin on the Mass Transit Tunnel — formerly known as the Trans-Hudson Express and, before that, Access to the Region’s Core — more than 15 years after it was conceived. A ceremonial groundbreaking was set for Monday alongside a highway in North Bergen, N.J., the site of the first small piece of what could be the biggest transit project in the country. The tunnel, which is expected to take...

May 26, 2009 On May 24, 2009, Egyptian security forces announced that they had arrested seven members of a terror cell [1] which, according to the confession of one of its members, had carried out the February 22, 2009 attack in Khan Al-Khalili. According to the announcement, the cell had ties to Al-Qaeda and to the Gaza salafi group Jaysh Al-Islam. [2] One of the captured terrorists, a Belgian national, confessed that he was supposed to travel to Belgium, make contact with Al-Qaeda operatives, and accompany them to France in order to prepare attacks there. The cell was also supposed...

Israeli warplanes bombed a Hamas security outpost and tunnels by the Gaza border with Egypt on Tuesday, after a rocket fired from the coastal territory struck an Israeli town, Israeli and Hamas sources said. Palestinian medics said a woman in Gaza suffered moderate wounds from one of several air strikes against tunnels Israel says are used to smuggle weapons into the coastal territory. Another raid targeted a Hamas outpost near a border fence with Israel, a Hamas source said. It was the first time Israel has attacked the Islamic militant group since a January 18 ceasefire went into effect after...

SNIPPET: "Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Dave Gaubatz, the first U.S. civilian (1811) Federal Agent deployed to Iraq in 2003. He is currently the Director of the Mapping Sharia Project and the Owner of DG Counter-terrorism Publishing..." SNIPPET: "Below is a sampling of the results of the interrogations agents and I obtained: I have the documents, photographs, and contact information of Iraqis and U.S. personnel who were also aware. Anything I write or speak about can be verified. Simply ask VP Biden and our President to release the complete intelligence reports my team and I wrote in 2003. 1. When...

AUSTRALIAN special forces troops have killed a senior Taliban commander in Afghanistan in an operation expected to disrupt insurgent activity for some months. Mullah Noorullah and one other insurgent were tracked moving into a tunnel system in the Oruzgan area, where Australian forces are based. They were killed in a targeted operation, defence said. Noorullah, classed as a senior insurgent commander, was involved in the use of improvised explosive devices and rocket attacks against coalition forces. He was also understood to have been involved in the major battle with Afghan and Australian forces on April 12 in which up to...

Note: The following text is a quote: Ali Al-Marri Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy to Provide Material Support to Al-Qaeda Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, 43, a dual national of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, has pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to provide material support to al-Qaeda. Al-Marri entered his guilty plea at a hearing this afternoon before Judge Michael M. Mihm in U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois. In so doing, al-Marri admitted that he agreed with others to provide material support or resources to al-Qaeda in the form of personnel, including himself, to work under al-Qaeda’s...

BAGHDAD, April 20, 2009 – When terrorists who discovered tunnels underneath a heavily traveled road in western Baghdad used an improvised explosive device to blow a huge hole in the street to disrupt traffic, 225th Engineer Brigade engineers from Headquarters and Support Company, 46th Engineer Combat Battalion, were called in to repair the road and seal access to the underground tunnels. Army Staff Sgt. Xavier Bowie descends into a tunnel beneath a heavily traveled road in western Baghdad to shut off access to terrorists trying to emplace bombs, Feb. 12, 2009. U.S. Army photo by 1st Lt. Stephen Clements  (Click...

Egypt terror cell planned to strike in Tel Aviv Almasry Alyoum reports two Palestinian Fatah operatives suspected of membership in Hizbullah cell uncovered in Sinai confess to planning to infiltrate into Israel to carry out suicide attacks Roee Nahmias Published:  04.16.09, 15:38 / Israel News   Members of the Hizbullah cell uncovered in Egypt planned to carry out terror attacks inside Israel, Egyptian daily Almasry Alyoum reported on Thursday.  According to the report, two of the cell's members are Fatah operatives, who confessed to having planned to enter Israel and carry out massive suicide attacks, "maybe even in Tel...

I was interviewed on Tuesday on CNBC's "Squawk Box" on my views on the economy, the stock market, the problems with the banks, the Geithner plan and whether there's light at the end of the tunnel. As I pointed out in the interview, the rate of economic contraction will slow from the -6% of the first quarter to a figure closer to -2%. And next year the economic recovery will be so weak--growth below 1% and the unemployment rate peaking at 10%--that it will still feel like a recession even if we may be technically out of it. So, compared...

Published: 03.23.09, 11:54 / Israel News Egyptian police seized a flock of 560 sheep set to be smuggled into the Gaza Strip through underground tunnels. SNIPPET: "A security official says the flock was discovered on Sunday night, along with the entrances to six tunnels in the Salah el-Din district north of the Rafah border crossing. Police seized five tons of cement and found a half ton cache of TNT hidden in near the border."

The accused Al Qaeda mastermind of a foiled plot to use suicide bombers to blow up Hudson River tunnels has been freed in Lebanon on a mere $667 bail. Assem Hammoud's release from a Beirut jail occurred months ago, but was kept quiet until he appeared in a TV interview Tuesday claiming his innocence.

Encouraged by details of the economic stimulus legislation signed into law by President Barack Obama yesterday, Port Authority officials will move ahead with work on the subway extension to the North Shore. An authority committee today recommended awarding contracts for two new phases of the $552.8 million project -- an $82.3 million pact for train systems, including tracks, power service and signals, and a $6 million package for elevators and escalators at the new stations. The 1.2-mile extension will connect the Light Rail Transit system to new stops at PNC Park and Heinz Field by 2011. Officials had feared that...

Just when I thought I’d seen every surprise the Middle East had to offer, I showed up on the Gaza/Egypt border. To understand why this is such a surprise you need to remember that Israel said the war in Gaza had two goals: 1) To stop the rocket fire and 2) To stop the smuggling of rockets into the Gaza strip and close the tunnels through which they are smuggled from the Egyptian side. So, I arrive at the border and find an entire community digging away like prospectors during the gold rush. It was all out in the open....

SNIPPET: "A North Texas imam is calling on Muslims to take up arms in defense of Palestinians in Gaza. Sheikh Mohamed El-Moctar El-Shinqiti, director of the Islamic Center of South Plains in Lubbock, Texas, participated in an online chat, "Fatwas on Gaza," at the web site IslamOnline.net. El-Shinqiti encouraged readers to fight - or if they can't, to send money to those who are fighting - in response to six out of the eight questions posed to him in the online chat. When asked what can be done to help the people in Gaza, El-Shinqiti emphasized war over sending food...

"HAMAS MISSILES FOR ISRAELI FOOD" (Added January 12, 2009) VIDEO DESCRIPTION - QUOTE: IsraelMFA January 12, 2009 Israel gives food, medicine and electricity to Gaza citizens and gets rockets in return. Category: News & Politics Tags: Israel Hamas war rockets missile humanitarian aid children shield Gaza

Cheney stressed the US support for the Gaza operation, saying the rocket fire on Israel must stop.

Two tunnels were discovered in Nogales over the weekend by Nogales police officers, making a four-day total of three tunnels found in the border city. Elsewhere, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers stopped 17 people from entering the United States using fraudulent Canadian citizenship cards at the Douglas port of entry. Officers patrolling an area near downtown Nogales discovered a tunnel east of the Dennis DeConcini Port of Entry about 6 p.m. Friday, said Mario Escalante, U.S. Border Patrol Tucson Sector spokes-man. Its opening was about 8 feet north of the border fence and hidden by weeds and a piece...

Fire in the chunnel.

Mexican police discovered an air-conditioned drug-smuggling tunnel less than 60 meters (65 yards) from the US border in northwest Mexico, state police said Tuesday. Policemen surprised workers who were five meters underground digging a tunnel to the United States while they were searching a house in the border city of Mexicali, Mexican police said. (AFP/SSP/Ho) MEXICO CITY (AFP) - Mexican police discovered an air-conditioned drug-smuggling tunnel less than 60 meters (65 yards) from the US border in northwest Mexico, state police said. The 140-meter-long (150-yard), 1.3-meter-wide and five-meter-deep tunnel included an electric rail for container transport, ventilation and lights as...

GAZA CITY (AFP) - The bodies of 3 Palestinians have been recovered from a smuggling tunnel between Egypt and the Gaza Strip which collapsed at the weekend, while 6 people are missing, medics said Monday. The tunnel near the Rafah border crossing caved in on Saturday, burying the 9 Palestinians, the medics said. Several Palestinians have died in recent months in the tunnels, which are used to smuggle arms, fuel, and other supplies into the Gaza Strip, which has been under a crippling Israeli blockade for nearly a year. Israel, which sealed Gaza off from all but vital humanitarian aid...

GAZA CITY: A tunnel under the Gaza-Egypt border collapsed, killing at least five Palestinians and wounding 18, Palestinian security and hospital officials said Saturday. The tunnel collapsed late Friday, near the Gaza border town of Rafah. A wide network of tunnels runs under the border and is used to bring supplies into Gaza. Israel says Hamas' rulers use the tunnel to bring in weapons and cash, and has urged Egypt to do more to stop the smuggling.

The Afghan daily "Anis" has said a recent counterterrorism operation in Afghanistan revealed how Iran is being used by militants as a major transit route out of Iraq and into Afghanistan via Pakistan's tribal regions. The state-owned newspaper said three foreign militants were captured in the operation -- two from the Middle East and one from Turkey. It said investigations have shown that all three militants crossed Iran in order to get to Pakistan's tribal regions before moving on into Afghanistan. An editorial in "Anis" described Iran as a "tunnel for terrorists" to the Pakistan's Waziristan region. "The people of...

Palestinian officials from the Gaza Strip have distributed a set of carefully-staged photographs they say are evidence that the smuggling tunnels running under the Gaza-Egypt border are for milk and other essential goods, not weapons.

(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...