Photo Credit:
Hamas Tunnel (archive)

Holy tunnel diggers!

A new 31.5-meter (102-foot) smuggler tunnel has been discovered snaking under the U.S.-Mexican border, according to a statement issued Sunday by Mexican federal police, and quoted by Associated Press.

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The unfinished illegal conduit was discovered by a team of Mexican police working together with the U.S. Border Patrol in Nogales, Arizona.

The entrance to the tunnel was found in Mexico inside the wall of a storm drain, but the exit had not yet reached its intended destination on the Arizona side of the border.

There are a number of drug trafficking organizations in Mexico who are known for using tunnels to transport their wares into the United States.

Across the Atlantic, the Gaza-based Hamas terrorist organization has used subterranean tunnels beneath the Egyptian border to smuggle drugs, arms, money and other contraband in and out of the Sinai Peninsula to help its ally, the local Da’esh (ISIS) terrorist affiliate, known as “Sinai Province” and formerly known as Ansar Beyt al-Maqdis.

Likewise, the Lebanon-based Iranian proxy Hezbollah terrorist organization who taught Hamas, has used tunnel-building locally for decades as well.

But Hezbollah has also long funded its terrorist activities via drug smuggling in Europe as well as in Latin America, and even as far north as in the United States itself.

Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) acting deputy administrator Jack Riley told reporters earlier this year that Hezbollah has, in fact, established business relationships with drug cartels in South America.

Hezbollah was accused of using the profits from the sale of cocaine in the United States and Europe to fund arms purchases for military use in Syria, according to a February 2016 statement by the DEA.

Sanctions were imposed against money launderers Mouhamad Noureddine and Hamdi Zaher El Dine by the U.S. Treasury Department, in connection with the DEA probe into Hezbollah drug trafficking and terrorism.

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Hana Levi Julian is a Middle East news analyst with a degree in Mass Communication and Journalism from Southern Connecticut State University. A past columnist with The Jewish Press and senior editor at Arutz 7, Ms. Julian has written for Babble.com, Chabad.org and other media outlets, in addition to her years working in broadcast journalism.