Strategic barriers
DEBKAfiles:
The report does not discuss the use of sensors and VAV's to monitor the barrier. However, the US has had considerable success with both and no doubt will be using them in the effort to slow down the jihadi infiltration. Barriers also have the inherent ability to channel infiltration into areas where US forces can destroy them.
DEBKAfiles:
Manmade barriers are springing up around the Middle East at points where manmade conflicts are most intractable. Be they security fences, earthworks, moated ramparts, steel walls, razor wire – or combinations thereof, their purpose is to apply division and separation to breaking up difficulties into manageable elements. Will this device work? Some think it’s worth a try.
Israeli forces who drove into the southern Gaza Strip town of the terrorist hotbed of Rafah’s Tel Sultan early Tuesday, May 18, came with giant engineering corps bulldozers. Earth banks were speedily thrown up to isolate from their environment the spaces in which Israeli armored and infantry units are hunting for wanted terrorists, cut off their escape routes and provide perches for Israeli snipers lying in wait for escapees.
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The largest American military barrier project of all is now underway to seal Iraq against the incursions al Qaeda and Arab fighters from Syria, especially the truck convoys carrying ammunition. The American barrier strategy resembles the new Israeli tactic for sealing off the Egyptian-Israeli-Gaza border against Palestinian smugglers. Both are aim at plugging cross-border leaks with one important difference: in the great Syrian Desert, terrorists find their way across the border overland, while in Rafah, Palestinian smugglers tunnel their way through underground.
According to DEBKAfile and DEBKA-Net-Weekly ’s military sources, the American barrier was well advanced before the Rafah operation began.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources report that the earthwork barrier American engineering units together with US and Jordanian engineering firms are throwing up will stretch 500 miles from the conjunction of the Syrian-Jordanian-Iraqi borders in the south to the Syrian-Turkish-Iraqi border junction in the north.
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According to our sources, the “wall” will be composed of five elements: A. An earthwork raised at its highest point to 3 meters, tall enough to block the path of four-wheeled drive vehicles. B. Deep trenches to prevent the crossing of light and heavy vehicles, to be dug in places where the earthwork cannot be raised to a sufficient height because of the lie of the land. C. Reinforced concrete cubes to block the many gulches and crevasses riddling the area. D. Water obstacles to obstruct river traffic. E. Electronic sensors scattered along the barrier’s length that will serve the same function as an electronic fence. F. The unit in charge of the barrier’s operation will have the use of a fleet of light spy and surveillance aircraft, helicopter gunships and drones. Its command center and air fleet will be linked to the spy satellites continually orbiting over Syria and Iraq.
US Ground Commander Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who fought hard for the wall, has admitted the structure cannot be completely impermeable. But by obstructing vehicular movement, it can substantially cut down the volume of illicit traffic entering from Syria.
The report does not discuss the use of sensors and VAV's to monitor the barrier. However, the US has had considerable success with both and no doubt will be using them in the effort to slow down the jihadi infiltration. Barriers also have the inherent ability to channel infiltration into areas where US forces can destroy them.
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