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Egypt hiding weapons in tunnels
Evidence of WMD program concealed in area of Libya border

Posted: February 14, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern
For years, Egypt has been engaged in missile and weapons of mass destruction programs with countries such as Iraq and North Korea, reports Geostrategy-Direct, the online intelligence newsletter. The problem was that the CIA had difficulty uncovering these programs.

Now, after years of searching, the CIA has come up with the reason.

Egypt has devised a concealment and deception program that exceeds that of North Korea's, intelligence operatives say. Many of the Egyptian missile and WMD programs are based in the Sahara and huge Western deserts between Egypt and Libya.

The two countries have built a series of tunnels along the Egyptian-Libyan border. The tunnels conceal development and production of North Korean missiles and nuclear weapons components from the prying eyes of Israeli and U.S. spy satellites.

North Korea reportedly built the tunnel network. Pyongyang used its expertise in digging its way to South Korea for the Egyptian and Libyan concealment program.

North Korea currently is working on a mega-tunnel project through Libya. Thousands of North Korean workers are building a reinforced concrete tunnel that is 1,300 feet underground and can't be destroyed even by U.S. nuclear weapons. Or, at least that is the hope by Egypt and the Libyans.

The presence of so many North Koreans as well as Filipinos in Libya has not been easy to hide. That's where the deception comes in. Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi has told Western guests that the laborers are going to build a 2,000-mile tunnel from Egypt to Tunisia in what the colonel calls the "Great Man-Made River Project."

Quietly, U.S. officials have probed Egypt for information on the project. Egyptian officials, who have stymied every U.S. investigation on Iraqi- or North Korean-linked WMD programs, have shrugged their shoulders