Egypt says it has uncovered 140 tunnels connecting the Sinai Peninsula with the Gaza Strip using advanced American equipment, Israel Radio reported on Wednesday.
This information was relayed to Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak by the Egyptian Defense Minister Muhammad Hussein Tantawi and Intelligence chief ‘Umar Suleiman during Barak’s recent visit to Egypt.
The U.S. has recently been testing tunnel detection systems along Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip and a team of U.S. military engineers was sent to train Egyptian forces to operate the equipment.
Egyptian soldiers have also been trained in courses in the U.S. for this purpose.
The equipment includes instruments that measure ground fluctuations and signal a tunnel is being dug.
The Bush administration approved spending $23 million on such equipment to help detect the tunnels.
Both the U.S and Israel have been critical in the past of the way Egypt has dealt with tunnels that are being used to smuggle weapons, terrorists, money, illicit materials and general goods into the Gaza Strip.
Egypt is keen to show it is making an effort to crack down on the smuggling, especially since Cairo receives an annual $1.4 billion in aid from Washington.
Also, Egypt helped broker the shaky cease-fire between Israel and Hamas that came into effect in June, and Cairo can play a key role in making sure that truce stays intact.
U.S. lawmakers have suggested aid to Egypt be suspended unless Cairo shows a more active stand in curbing smuggling into Gaza and introducing democratic reforms in the country.
U.S. officials say Cairo is playing a positive role regarding peace efforts in the Middle East. The U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv confirmed to The Media Line that the U.S. was indeed providing equipment to the Egyptians but officials are not commenting on how Washington assesses Egypt’s performance on stopping the smuggling since the new equipment came into use.
The Israel Defense Forces says 20 tunnels have been uncovered by the Israeli army since 2006. Some were used by Hamas as a passageway for terrorists between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, while others were intended to be used to infiltrate Israel and carry out terror attacks, the IDF said.