In Iraq, ISIS used tunnel attacks to devastating effect in their assault on Ramadi. On March 11, ISIS forces detonated a tunnel bomb under an Iraqi army headquarters, killing an estimated 22 people. The blast consumed seven tons of explosives in an 800-foot long tunnel that took two months to dig, according to the JIEDDO briefing. On March 15, a second tunnel bomb was used to attack Iraqi Security Forces. The city fell two months later.
Beyond bombs, ISIS is believed to be using tunnels to move weapons and avoid detection by American and ally fighter jets and drones. (ISIS may even be exploiting Saddam Hussein’s own tunnel network, which is thought to stretch for 60 miles between palaces, military strongholds, and houses. During the U.S. invasion in 2003, Saddam’s forces used these tunnels to move weapons and as hideouts.)
To find these subterranean passageways, JIEDDO has been seeking help from the scientific community and the oil and gas industry, both of which use specialized equipment and seismic devices to see underground. Some of this technology can be adapted for military use, Col. Timothy Frambes, JIEDDO’s director of strategy, plans and policy, said in an interview Monday. “We’re just trying to figure out what’s the quickest, best technological solution that we can help provide the most complete situational awareness picture of the operating space,” Frambes said.
The work also builds on JIEDDO’s decade-long effort to develop aircraft- and vehicle-mounted sensors that can detect bombs buried in roadways. “The enemy knows that,” Frambes said. “So he has found a way to go subterranean in order to deliver either an explosive charge or just to transit a line of communication.”
The Pentagon is also hoping to learn lessons from Israel, which has sought ways to counter Hamas tunnels in Gaza. That notion is backed by Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., who introduced an amendment to the 2016 defense authorization bill that calls for the U.S. to work with Israel on the tunnel problem. The legislation would allow the U.S.“to carry out research, development, test and evaluation on a joint basis with Israel to establish anti-tunneling defense capabilities to detect, map and neutralize underground tunnels into and directed at the territory of Israel.”
A Senate aide said such jointly developed technology could protect battlefield bases and embassies — or even the U.S. frontier. Anti-tunnel work at a site in northern Israel has similar topography to the U.S.-Mexico border, the staffer said.
“Whether it’s criminals smuggling people and drugs into the U.S. under our southern border, or terrorists sneaking into Israel to conduct attacks, tunnels present a serious national security threat to our two countries,” Ayotte said in a statement.