Preparedness, Preventive, and Defensive Measures ◾ 361
In today’s world, confronted with the realities of terrorism and terroristic objec-
tives, one must also acknowledge that tunnels pose a looming threat to national
security (Ugarte and Garcia-Olalla 2011). A 2007 operational need statement from
the US Central Command (USCENTCOM) noted that detainees were attempting
to build a tunnel as a means to escape from the internment facilities (Ugarte and
Garcia-Olalla 2011). Another region with an emerging subterranean threat to US
Forces is in Afghanistan with the Karez, or underground aquifers built to move
irrigation water from mountains to villages by normal gravity-driven ow and pres-
ent the Taliban and other insurgents with a means to cac ...