Egypt discovers enormous tunnels coming from Gaza Tunnels big enough to fit a truck have been discovered by the Egyptian military on the Sinai-Gaza border. These tunnels are allegedly the source of weapons being used by ISIS and Islamic Jihad in the peninsula, and point to a thriving weapons industry in the Strip.
Israel News Hamas has been digging tunnels on the border of Egypt that are big enough to permit vehicles the size of trucks to go through, according to Egyptian security officials.
The tunnels connect the Gaza Strip with the Sinai Peninsula, and are being built in order to compensate for the tunnels which were flooded or blocked by the Egyptians.
These enormous tunnels, some of which stretch for over three kilometers, are designed to traverse the security zone Egypt set up between the border with Gaza and the Sinai. This security zone – which ranges between half a kilometer and a kilometer in length on the Egyptian side – has been cleared out of any buildings or people. The area has also been flooded in order to block the existing shafts into the tunnels.
These tunnels are meant to transfer fighters and weapons, as well as building materials and other imports in an effort by Hamas to break the economic siege imposed on the Strip, Egyptian officials said.
Israeli security officials don’t know of any tunnels that large crossing into Israel. However, if they do exist, Israel will have to take into account the possibility of the existence of tunnels that are over three kilometers in length, which will make them harder to find.
Israel estimates that the recent increase in the number of tunnel collapses in Gaza in the past several months is due to the increased difficulty in obtaining materials to structurally support the tunnels – principally wood and cement. To replace these materials, Hamas is using fiberglass, which is also illegal to import into the Strip. Hamas still tries to smuggle it in, even though the material can’t support the same amount of weight as cement, and collapses.
The Egyptian government also notes another worrying phenomenon regarding the relations between Hamas and the terrorist organizations in the Sinai: it turns out that Hamas has become a weapons exporter to Egypt. In the past several months, several types of weapons were found by Egyptian security forces which bear the markings of being manufactured by the Hamas military wing.
Amongst the weapons found were solar water heaters filled with explosive materials, which are one of the deadliest weapons ISIS in Sinai uses against the Egyptian military. The solar water heaters are used as IEDs with the ability to take out a tank. A few years ago, Hamas used one of these IEDs and disabled an Israeli tank.
The Egyptian government also claims that ISIS shoots Hamas-made rockets at Egyptian military bases in the peninsula.
Hamas also ships weapons from the Gaza Strip to elements affiliated with global Islamic Jihad which is active in Sinai. These are weapons which were smuggled into Gaza either by the Iranians or from Libya, which then ended up in the hands of the jihadists.
At present, there is a new reason to worry – the export of weapons made in the Strip in industrial quantities is a new phenomenon which indicates a new level of institutionalization of the weapons manufacturing process in the Gaza Strip.
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But it is much worse especially when the United Nations is pinpointing violations that curiously involves The Turi Defense Group, noted for supplying weapons to Benghazi, Libya.
U.N. Report Sees Array of Nations, People and Companies Breaking Libyan Arms Embargo
WSJ: A United Nations report has found an array of companies, individuals and countries supplying arms to factions in Libya, breaking a long-standing international arms embargo placed on the politically unstable and divided North African country.
In the report, which was submitted to the Security Council in January and is soon to be made public, U.N. investigators allege sanctions were broken in 2014 and 2015 with shipments of military equipment from the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Turkey, among others. In some cases, goods were transported across countries, such as Jordan, and in others transport was supplied by firms with close associations to states such as shippers from Ukraine, the report says.
U.N. officials said they are also investigating actions of two U.S.-based companies that investigators said appear to have brokered an arms deal in 2011, as well as an Italian middleman working with a U.K.-based Libyan national on behalf of the Libyan authorities in control of Tripoli.
The Security Council will consider evidence presented in the report and decide what, if any, action to take against U.N. member nations and the individuals allegedly involved.
The Security Council placed the arms embargo on Libya and all warring factions during the Arab Spring revolution in 2011, as part of an international military intervention against former dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who eventually was deposed and killed by Libyan rebels.
The arms embargo, as well as asset freezes for several former regime officials and for state institutions such as the sovereign-wealth fund, remain in place as Libya struggles to regain political and security stability.
The weapons in question were destined for Libya’s two rival governments and their allied militias, which have been fighting for control of the oil-rich nation since the summer of 2014, according to the report.
Since 2014, competing authorities have in effect divided Libya into two. The government based in Tripoli is a collection of regional and Islamic militias and allied politicians. The regime based in Tobruk represents many regions across Libya and won the country’s most recent election in 2014. The U.N., however, recently has brokered a new unity government that is still being formed.
Officials from the government in Tobruk have confirmed they have received weapons from friendly allies but say such arms were necessary for self-defense. “I don’t think the Security Council should have any say in who the Libyan government buys or receives weapons from,” said Abdulsalam Nasiya, an official with the House of Representatives in Tobruk.
Saad Sharada, a member of the congress based in Tripoli, said his political allies have received military personnel carriers, but he denied they have procured any weapons.
“Arms and ammunition are continuing to be transferred to various parties in Libya, with the involvement of member states and complex networks of brokering companies that do not appear to be deterred by the arms embargo,” the report states.
The report devotes separate sections to nation states and individuals that investigators believe are complicit in sanctions violations. It includes more than 100 pages of documentation including copies of arms orders, invoices, end-user certificates, as well as serial numbers and photos of armaments which were once held in national militaries but that have ended up in the country.
Libyan and international officials told U.N. investigators the government in Tobruk had been receiving equipment from abroad, through its own procurement operations and from countries supporting it, according to the report. Those countries include Egypt and the U.A.E., according to two people familiar with the situation.
Investigators allege the U.A.E. approved weapons shipments to the Tobruk government, in addition to allowing its national companies to sell weapons to that faction.
Investigators said the U.A.E. has largely been unresponsive to requests for explanation and comment about allegations its government approved direct arms shipments to Libya’s Tobruk-based authorities and allowed U.A.E. companies to ship weapons. A person familiar with the situation said the U.A.E. government wouldn’t be issuing any comment about the report.
The report says Egyptian military hardware, including attack helicopters, ended up in the arsenal of the Tobruk regime. It cites photos of the helicopters, including tail numbers.
U.N. officials contacted Egypt to obtain further information on what investigators believe were official government transfers of arms, according to a person familiar with the situation. Egypt responded that the panel’s information regarding the transfers was incorrect and that it was fully committed to the implementation of U.N. resolutions, the report said.
The Sudanese government is alleged to have shipped ammunition, among other weaponry. The report shows pictures of samples of the ammunition.
Rabie Abdelaty, spokesman for Sudan’s information ministry, said on Thursday that his government has yet to see the U.N. report, but he described the allegations as untrue. “We are for peace, and we support the U.N.,” Mr. Abdelaty said. “We can’t side with anybody who is trying to destabilize Libya or any other country. That’s not how we operate,” Mr. Abdelaty said. He added that Khartoum has deployed more troops to patrol the border with Libya to ensure there aren’t illicit arms flows.
Turkish arms manufacturers are said by the report to have sold and shipped weapons to Libyan actors, while Ukrainian national companies are alleged to have been involved in shipping armaments.
Turkish officials told the U.N. their government was committed to upholding the embargo and that it was investigating incidents detailed in the report in which Turkish arms manufacturers allegedly sold and shipped weapons to Libyan actors, according to the report. Turkish officials didn’t immediately respond to WSJ requests to comment.
And Ukraine in previous responses to the investigators said it was looking into the allegations in the report that its national companies were involved in shipping armaments to Libya.
The U.N. report also says arms shipments had often passed through Jordan en route to Libya. Jordanian officials told U.N. investigators the government had no record of flights using Jordanian airspace to transport illegal cargoes of weapons to Libya. A Jordanian government spokesman told The Wall Street Journal that the allegations in the U.N. report weren’t accurate.
Meanwhile, investigators are looking into an Armenian-registered airline the report alleges transported arms and materiel from the U.A.E. via Jordan on behalf of Libyans allied with the regime based in Tobruk.
The airline Veteran Avia, which is based in the Armenian capital of Yerevan and operates out of Sharjah, U.A.E., couldn’t immediately be reached to comment. Armenian government officials told U.N. investigators the airline confirmed it had flown cargo from the U.A.E. via Jordan to Libya, but that the cargo was humanitarian aid, according to a U.N. official familiar with the situation.
The U.S. companies mentioned in the U.N. report have been named in U.S. criminal cases brought by American authorities over the alleged arms deal in Libya, according to court filings and documents published as part of the 215-page report submitted to the Security Council in January.
Representatives of the two companies—Turi Defense Group and Dolarian Capital—couldn’t immediately be reached to comment. Status of the court cases isn’t clear. Both companies, which the report said worked together to broker the alleged arms deal, have previously denied any wrongdoing. Lawyers for Turi Defense have moved to have the cases dismissed.
U.N. Investigators report on a regular basis about violations of the U.N. arms embargo. The January report to the Security Council underscores how regional actors have exacerbated the continuing political schisms by providing weapons to their favored militias and rival governments.
The U.N. report also cites alleged payments by Libyan Central Bank officials to members of Libyan militias that have been classified as terrorist organizations, namely Ansar Sharia, the group in Benghazi that U.S. officials hold responsible for the 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate and CIA safe house that killed four American officials.
Two Central Bank checks made out for 6 million Libyan dinars ($4.2 million) were cashed by the Benghazi Revolutionaries Shura Council, an umbrella group of militias in that eastern city to which Ansar Sharia belongs. Officials from the Central Bank didn’t reply to U.N. requests for comment or clarification, the report says.
