The Subterranean Medium: The Desirable vs. the Available

In Israel, everything possible is being done to locate terrorist tunnels – but that is not enough. The former commander of the IDF YAHALOM Unit addresses the need for a technological solution for real-time detection that would constitute a tie-breaker in this struggle

The Subterranean Medium: The Desirable vs. the Available

Fighting in the subterranean medium has been around since the early 1960s. It was encountered in Cambodia and subsequently in Vietnam (where it gained more publicity), when the subterranean medium evolved into a major hindrance for US forces in their operations against the Viet Cong.

The opponent's use of the subterranean medium was normally intended to compensate for that opponent's relative disadvantage in the context of an asymmetrical warfare effort. The subterranean medium provides concealment, protection and stealth as well as the ability to surprise mainly regular military forces that maintain a structured security and combat routine. The opponent, on the other hand, employs guerrilla tactics and uses the subterranean medium as part of his disappearance and stealth strategy against the regular forces confronting him.

A clear distinction should be made between tunnels and spaces within the subterranean medium. The spaces in question are intended primarily for combat operations against forces that enter enemy territory, where they will be used as command posts and storage facilities for warlike stores and as accommodations for local troops that use those spaces for concealment and protection against attacks by the invaders.

The world of underground tunnels in which the various terrorist organizations currently invest their efforts consists of several tunnel categories: tunnels for smuggling resources, tunnels for staging terrorist attacks and large-scale killing sprees, tunnels for kidnapping enemy troopers and tunnels constituting a part of the user organizations' command and control infrastructure and used to mobilize the commanders and troopers from one location to another, during the actual fighting, without exposing them unnecessarily. The common denominator of all those tunnel types is mostly covert excavating through the soil, at varying depths – from 10 meters to 30 meters and even deeper.

The subterranean issue generally and the world of tunnels in particular have evolved in the Gaza Strip for the past 25 years and mostly over the last decade, particularly in the context of the second Intifada and pursuant to the complete withdrawal of the IDF from the Gaza Strip.

It is important to stress that the excavation through the subterranean medium constitutes a business activity to all intents and purposes for the "innocent" inhabitants of the Gaza Strip. The terrorist organizations take full advantage of the economic hardship of the local population, and by offering handsome financial rewards, they recruit the locals into this extensive and highly profitable industry. In fact, a classic win-win situation has evolved here: the population profits, terrorism profits, and as long as the situation of economic hardship remains unresolved, the motivation of both sides to cooperate is tremendous.

Without delving into too much detail, I will say that there are currently a few dozen active tunnels at varying depths and of varying lengths inside the Strip and in the direction of the State of Israel. The operational challenge is a substantial one, especially in view of the potential damage and the strategic threat to the State of Israel: behold what the kidnapping of one IDF soldier, or alternately the smuggling of a tie-breaker weapon system into the Gaza Strip, can do.

In this article, I will review the situation with regard to the question of how the Israeli defense establishment copes with the tunnel and subterranean medium threat, at the routine security level. Additionally, I will address the Israeli preparedness for reality-shaping operations inside the Gaza Strip and possibly in other places as well.

Israel's way of coping with the subterranean threat consists of three countermeasure loops: the intelligence loop, the technological loop and the operational loop (employment of force). There is nothing new about these three loops. They are parts of the operational whole on the basis of which the Israeli defense establishment has been operating for many years. The reason I bother to mention this "whole" is the fact that it has sustained some chasms that prevent the attainment of operational wholeness, such as the one developed around the world of targeted killings, surveillance and arrest operations in most territories.

Daily activity is under way in all three loops. The world of routine security operations and employment of force does not rest on its laurels even for a minute. The various intelligence systems are mobilized full-time for this on-going contest and all of the leading defense industries are intensively involved in it, under the leadership of IMOD's Administration for the Development of Weapons and Technological Infrastructure (MAFAT) with the purpose of creating an operational whole for dealing with this particular challenge.

Cracks in the Loop 

I will begin with one of the good things: intelligence dominance. This dominance improves all the time and succeeds in detecting and spotting activities in the context of the subterranean medium through focused intelligence gathering activity in all of the collection categories. The operational-countermeasure activity in this context, from the air and from the ground, and sometimes from the sea as well, is conducted very effectively any time the intelligence elements point to a legitimate objective. I dare to say that in this context, the challenges faced by the intelligence elements and the operational units are not different from other operational challenges. Once intelligence has become available, the operational countermeasure loop goes into action and manages to deliver good operational results.

So where is the gap? The most substantial gap involves the supporting technologies. Much has been said about the need to detect, identify and locate activity in the subterranean medium in real time – not only by intelligence sources. Today, the primary challenge along the technological axis involves the development of a solution for a clearly-defined and highly challenging operational need: stand-off detection of activity in the subterranean medium.

All of the smaller and larger tunnels uncovered with so much fanfare had been discovered by chance rather than through focused intelligence information. It was sheer luck every time. None of them had been detected during the actual excavation by technological measures. Highly extensive technological-operational activity is currently under way in the context of a supreme effort to come up with a significant operational solution.

To my understanding, the technological effort should focus on three primary activities: development of a stand-off capability to detect and identify irregular activity deep under the ground; development of the ability to gain terrain dominance over expansive area cells where subterranean activity may be monitored (based on the stand-off detection capability), and development of a focused capability to demolish and destroy underground tunnels.

Efforts are currently under way in all three fields of activity and even beyond, but the solutions currently available are still insufficient. Today's modus operandi is based on an adequate routine security solution (intelligence and operational activities – both statistical and focused). The intelligence "foot" and the operational "foot" undoubtedly work very diligently owing to the absence of a technological solution. Consequently, the solution and the required operational effectiveness are not up to the desired standard.

The way things are, the "race" between the various terrorist organizations and the Israeli defense establishment with regard to the subterranean medium will only intensify. They will refine their capabilities and the State of Israel will continue to develop capabilities in an attempt to provide a solution to the operational gap.

As the kind of 'race' we are referring to is infinite, a tie-breaker should be found to provide us with a significant advantage in this context, as otherwise we will find ourselves forced into an endless quest for patchwork, makeshift solutions with no complete, finite solution in sight.

The tie-breaker can only be provided in the form of a comprehensive, substantial, system-wide technological solution. Admittedly, it is a burdensome challenge – but not an impossible undertaking. The Iron Dome missile defense system is an excellent example of the type of tie-breaker we need. We should take this system and its contribution and apply the concept to a tie-breaker solution for the subterranean threat – a solution that would enable us, gradually, to detect in real time any irregular activity in the subterranean medium, at different depths and over expansive areas. Such a system will yield a radically different operational reality.

As the complete solution does not exist yet, there is no other choice except continuing to operate diligently using the resources available. Those resources are by no means poor or inferior – but they are insufficient. Admittedly, the intelligence elements improve constantly and the operational capabilities provide adequate support, but we are lacking nevertheless. We lack the operational whole. At this point, substantial resources and efforts are being invested in several attempts to develop methods that are mostly statistical and not sufficiently focused and sophisticated. As always, the IDF fight very tenaciously while employing every means at their disposal.

At this time, the resources of the Israeli defense establishment must be directed at the quest for a solution, in the form of a stand-off technological system that transfers the "ball", in its entirety, to the opponent's part of the field.