The IsraeliJerusalem Post said Egyptian engineers went to the US-Mexican border to get trained in the techniques used by the U.S. military to detect and destroy tunnels. It said the visit was in accordance with the memorandum of understanding signed recently between Israel and the United States on the smuggling of weapons. It also said that Washington had sent military engineers to Sinai to detect the tunnels and assist Egypt in destroying them. It quoted Israeli military sources as saying that the Egyptian engineers are being trained on digging deep holes and planting explosives in them to destroy nearby tunnels. They said 300 tunnels were destroyed in the recent Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip. The paper added that Israel, Egypt, the United States and the European Union will hold regular meetings in the coming weeks to exchange intelligence information on the weapons that Iran smuggles to Hamas.
Major-General Adel Suleiman, a strategic expert, said the Israeli newspaper is mixing between the technical cooperation between Cairo and Washington on the tunnels, which was declared before the military operations in Gaza, and the US-Israeli agreement that was signed recently. He said that Egypt had already received American devices that detect and destroy tunnels, pointing out that any agreement for purchasing equipment includes that a special delegation should travel for training on how to operate such equipment on the ground. He said the former U.S. ambassador in Cairo Francis J. Ricciardone had in April expressed his country's readiness to provide expertise to Egypt in the field of border control, like the United States control of the border with Mexico.
