Free Republic

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Egyptian forces pumped gas into a cross-border tunnel used to smuggle goods into the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, killing four Palestinians, Hamas officials said. Egypt has been under pressure to seal off the hundreds of tunnels that are a key economic lifeline for the blockaded Palestinian territory but which are also used to bring in weapons for the Islamic militant group.

"Air Force strikes in Gaza" SNIPPET: "IDF retaliates for deadly Qassam attack: Air Force hits several Gaza targets, including metal foundry, smuggling tunnel; Vice PM Shalom says Israel to offer strong response to rocket attack that killed Thai worker Thursday" SNIPPET: "IDF aircraft struck at least four targets in the Gaza Strip on Friday, a day after a rocket fired from the Palestinian enclave killed a Thai worker in Israel, Hamas security officials and witnesses said." SNIPPET: "Israel also sent a letter of complaint to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who is due to visit Israel at the weekend,...

Obama amputates our nuclear arms By: Charles Krauthammer ...snippet...Under President Obama’s new policy, however, if the state that has just attacked us with biological or chemical weapons is “in compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty,” explained Gates, then “the U.S. pledges not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against it.” Imagine the scenario: Hundreds of thousands are lying dead in the streets of Boston after a massive anthrax or nerve gas attack. The president immediately calls in the lawyers to determine whether the attacking state is in compliance with the NPT. If it turns out that the attacker...

Rest of Title: at U.S.-Mexican Border The number of tunnels being used to smuggle illegal drugs across the Southwestern border grew by more than half from 2008 to 2009, according to a March 25 report from the National Drug Intelligence Center. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2009, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents stationed along U.S.-Mexico border discovered 26 illegal tunnels – a 60 percent increase over the 16 tunnels that authorities discovered in 2008. Most of the subterranean routes were discovered in Arizona, with 20 found in the “Tucson Sector” – a 262-mile long section of the border from...

Last September, when Iran’s uranium enrichment plant buried inside a mountain near the holy city of Qum was revealed, the episode cast light on a wider pattern: Over the past decade, Iran has quietly hidden an increasingly large part of its atomic complex in networks of tunnels and bunkers across the country. In doing so, American government and private experts say, Iran has achieved a double purpose. Not only has it shielded its infrastructure from military attack in warrens of dense rock, but it has further obscured the scale and nature of its notoriously opaque nuclear effort. The discovery of...

Last September, when Iran’s uranium enrichment plant buried inside a mountain near the holy city of Qum was revealed, the episode cast light on a wider pattern: Over the past decade, Iran has quietly hidden an increasingly large part of its atomic complex in networks of tunnels and bunkers across the country.

THE Roads and Traffic Authority has proudly announced the success of a road safety program - for our State's native wildlife. To reduce the number of animals killed on NSW roads each year, the RTA has installed more than 200 animal crossings on NSW highways. Rather than wait for a break in the constant flow of traffic, native animals are using specifically built tunnels and bridges to cross roads. And some of Australia's favourite native creatures have been smiling for the cameras as they scurry by. A little possum was snapped crossing over a rope bridge that hangs above the...

CAIRO – A council of leading Muslim scholars has supported the Egyptian government’s construction of an underground barrier along the border with Gaza to impede tunnelling by smugglers, a report said Friday. The Islamic Research Council of Al-Azhar University, Islam’s highest seat of learning, said that the tunnels were used to smuggle drugs and threatened Egypt’s security, the Al-Masri Al-Yawm newspaper reported. “It is one of Egypt’s legitimate rights to place a barrier that prevents the harm from the tunnels under Rafah, which are used to smuggle drugs and other (contraband) that threaten Egypt’s stability,” the paper quoted the scholars...

In early December, the People’s Liberation Army's (PLA) publication, China Defense Daily (Zhongguo Guofang Bao), published a report that provided a rare glimpse into an underground tunnel that is being built by the Second Artillery Corps (SAC)—the PLA's strategic missile forces—in the mountainous regions of Hebei Province in northern China. The network of tunnels reportedly stretches for more than 3,107 miles (Ta Kung Pao, December 11; Xinhua News Agency, December 14). The revelation of the semi-underground tunnel highlights the strides being made by China's nuclear modernization efforts, and underscores a changing deterrent relationship between the United States and China. China's...

Some people go cave exploring for fun, but when there is a possibility of stumbling on explosive materials, an armed enemy or a nasty surprise they've left to be triggered in the dark, it's about as far from fun as you can get. Marines from 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment are searching wet, pitch-dark tunnels ranging from 40 to 100 feet underground that connect the karez system – a network of wells and tunnels between the snow-capped peaks of the Buji Bhast mountains and the arid desert plain here. The karez system was originally constructed hundreds, maybe thousands, of years...

A computer belonging to alleged al Qaeda suspect Najibullah Zazi showed he had researched baseball and football stadiums and sites used in the recent Fashion Week event in New York City, law enforcement officials tell ABCNews.com. As the 24-year-old was being questioned for a fourth straight day by FBI agents about his alleged ties to al Qaeda, law enforcement officials said the Denver man's computer showed he had researched baseball and football stadiums and sites used in the recent Fashion Week event in New York City. Zazi, 24, was scheduled to be questioned for a fourth straight day today by...

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...

(07-02) 22:16 PDT San Diego, CA (AP) -- Authorities say they have found another secret tunnel near a San Diego border crossing. The 53-foot passageway, reinforced with plywood and equipped with battery-powered lights, was discovered Thursday as law enforcement officials were investigating an incomplete cross-border tunnel west of the San Ysidro crossing.

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.

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...