Egypt's military has destroyed a new 1,700 meter long smuggling tunnel in Sinai Peninsula in its continued effort to combat terrorist activities, state news agency MENA reported on Wednesday. According to the agency, the passageway, located at the international borderline with Egyptian border city of Rafah, was prepared and used to smuggle people, supplies, weaponry, and ammunition. The army's second field army was able to demolish the tunnel and eliminate all six openings to block all extremist groups and smugglers from using it again. This is the second time that the Egyptian army has announced in December that it had discovered and destroyed smuggling tunnels. Earlier in December, the army said that it had torn down seven smuggling tunnels connecting the Israeli-besieged Gaza Strip with the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt has long portrayed the tunnels as a passageway for arms and militants that it has been fighting in North Sinai, posing a risk to the country's security. In 2014, the army officially announced that it had destroyed a total of 1,813 smuggling tunnels since January 2011.
