Call it the Mideast imagination or an utter disregard for reality, but Egypt is claiming that it stopped 20 kilotons of TNT from being smuggled into Gaza.
That would be the equivalent of the explosive power of the atomic bomb that wiped out Hiroshima or Nagasaki and killed tens of thousands of Japanese civilians.
The AP reports that Egypt is claiming in a security report to have uncovered 60 tunnels along its borders with the Gaza Strip and seized about 20,000 tons of explosives in the Sinai Peninsula over the past 10 months, as published in the Jerusalem Post. The International Herald tribune reports 20 tons, but what are a few decimal places between friends?
The report, which provides details about tunnels, weapons smuggling and arrests of would-be suicide bombers, aims at countering Israeli accusations that Egypt is not doing enough to stop Palestinian smugglers, an Egyptian security official said.
The official, who spoke anonymously, did not specify whether the report ever would be made public. The report describes each tunnel in detail, listing its depth, width, distance from the border and the names of the owners of the land where it was uncovered.
Several tunnel entrances were dug inside private houses on Egypt's side of the border, the report says.
Besides 20,000 tons of TNT explosives (or was it 20 million?), Egyptian authorities said that their security forces recovered mines, detonators, hand-grenades and ammunition, along with other goods smuggled into the increasingly isolated Gaza Strip such as cigarettes, auto parts, medicine, chewing gum, and condoms. One source reported that 20,000 tons of condoms was also found (or was it 20 million kilotons?)
The explosives were reportedly found stocked in plastics and condoms and then buried in mountainous areas of the Sinai. Local Bedouin tribes helped police trace the smugglers' hideouts, the report said.
It detailed the arrests of three groups of Palestinians earlier this year, some caught carrying explosive belts, supposedly with the alleged intention of infiltrating into Israel to carry out suicide attacks.
Hundreds (or perhaps hundreds of thousands, if one extrapolates from the TNT total) of immigrants from different nationalities were also arrested while trying to cross into Israel or the Palestinian Territories, the report said. |
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