Small Wars Journal

How Did Israel's Enemies Become Experts in Tunnel Warfare?

Tue, 12/18/2018 - 9:50pm

How Did Israel's Enemies Become Experts in Tunnel Warfare? By Seth J. Frantzman - Jerusalem Post

In April 2017, a lumbering American MC-130 prop plane flew over a mountainous area in eastern Afghanistan. Just before 8 p.m., the plane dropped a 9,797 kg. bomb, known as a GBU-43, the largest non-nuclear explosive ever used, on a tunnel network used by Islamic State. Thirty-six ISIS members were killed in the massive explosion that followed, according to US estimates. That tunnel network was more complex than the one that Hezbollah has built in southern Lebanon.

But just as the US has had to contend with terrorist tunnels, Israel and all countries facing terrorism are increasingly forced to fight an underground war.

 

The complex of caves and tunnels is one of many in Afghanistan used by terrorist groups. ISIS, like many terrorist groups, has become expert in tunneling. ISIS didn’t invent this on its own. The group expanded on technology that other terrorist groups have used.

ISIS also used tunnels that have existed in places like Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan for decades. Some of these are bunker complexes that various regimes built and were improved upon by the terrorists, or they may be terrorism tunnels built by groups such as the Taliban and Al-Qaeda…

Read on.