Axis of Logic
Finding Clarity in the 21st Century Mediaplex

U.S. Military
Countering tunnels or bowing to Israel?
By Saed Bannoura. Comment by Cherifa Sirry
IMEMC
Sunday, Sep 6, 2009

Axis of Logic correspondent, Cherifa Sirry writes:

"No offense to my American friends but...
 
"I thought that US satellites could see Mr. Ben Laden in his cave in Afghanistan and even "smoke him out of his hole"!  Now we find out that they also cannot see the Gaza tunnels? Notice in the article below, that the "American military experts" who arrived to Al Arish airport in Egypt needed to be "heavily guarded" in order to get to the Egyptian side of Rafah.  Hmm...  does that say something about how the Egyptian people feel towards the United States and especially any military presence it might be contemplating on Egyptian territory?
 
"Instead of presenting Egypt with high-tech equipment "to uncover the not-so-high-tech-tunnels",  why don't the American military experts present high-tech equipment to their own army personnel in Iraq or Afghanistan?
 
"It seems that losing Iran, Iraq and Lebanon wasn't enough for the US..

"And all this for Israel.
 
"What a pity..."

- Cherifa Sirry in Egypt


U.S. Military officials in Egypt to present plan to counter tunnels
By Saed Bannoura
IMEMC

Tunnel to Gaza

Egyptian security sources reported Tuesday that American military experts arrived at the Al Arish International Airport and headed, while heavily guarded, to the Rafah border terminal where they met senior Egyptian security officials.
 
The officials held a meeting with their Egyptian counterparts and presented a detailed plan that includes high-tech equipment to uncover tunnels.
 
The equipment was donated by the United States as the country is sponsoring the installation of high-tech devices to stop the smuggling at the Gaza-Egypt border.
 
The U.S. officials said that the congress-supported plan aims at securing the 13.5 border line between Egypt and Gaza. The congress approved allocating 50 Million USD to secure the borders between Egypt and Israel.
 
They visited the border area and saw the tunnels that were uncovered and detonated by Egypt. The number of tunnels uncovered so far exceeded 300.
 
The officials also observed the ongoing installation of surveillance cameras and monitoring systems along the border, and thanked Egypt for its efforts to counter the tunnels on its border with Gaza.
 
Israel claims that one of the reasons that “pushed” it to go to war with Gaza us the ongoing smuggling of arms and ammunition.
 
It is worth mentioning that Egypt installed high-tech surveillance cameras along the border line as an initial step towards installing the new systems.
 
The equipment can detect underground tunnels, and also detects any underground movement even if it is far away.

International Middle East Media Center