Hamas claims Israel assassinated commander in Dubai
A senior Hamas commander was “assassinated in Dubai” by Israel on January 20, according to the Palestinan group. Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, the 50-year-old founder of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, according to a statement, “died a martyr on 20 January, in suspicious circumstances”. No further details were given. Hamas has stated that it will “retaliate for this Zionist crime at the appropriate moment”, and is calling for a joint enquiry into the death.
[We] will avenge the blood shed by the martyr
—Hamas statement
Mabhouh, exiled to Syria since 1989, was behind the abduction and murder that year of two Israeli soldiers, Avi Sasportas and Ilan Sadon, and founded the paramilitary wing of Hamas named after a Syrian religious leader who waged war against the British in the 1930s. Mabhouh also masterminded several other attacks, to the point that Israeli authorities demolished his home in the Gaza strip. Mabhouh spent several periods in Israeli custody. After his most recent release, “he spent his life being hounded by the Zionist occupier until he succeeded in leaving the Gaza Strip”, according to Hamas.
This is not the first alleged killing by Israel of Hamas members. In 2004, the founder of Hamas was killed in an Israeli gunship attack, and, later that year, a senior Hamas member was assassinated when two missiles hit his car.
Hamas claims Israel assassinated commander in Dubai – Wikinews, the free news source.
However, Robert F. Worth reported in this Times piece, United Arab Emirates: Suspects in an Official’s Death
Dubai’s police chief said Monday that an 11-person team of trained killers with European passports carried out the mysterious assassination of a senior Hamas official last month in a Dubai hotel. The chief, Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan al-Tamim, provided names and photographs of the suspects, along with a detailed account of how they tracked the Hamas official, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, and suffocated him within minutes of his arrival on Jan. 19 at Al Bustan Rotana hotel, near the international airport. The suspects, who disguised themselves with wigs and fake beards, left Dubai immediately after the killing on separate airlines, the chief said. He also said that two Palestinian suspects in the case were arrested in Jordan and extradited to Dubai, where they are now in custody. Mr. Mabhouh played a role in the kidnapping and killing of two Israeli soldiers in 1989. Hamas has accused Israel of his killing, and has vowed to retaliate.
[Bold/red emphasis added].
If, in fact, the “two Palestinian suspects” are, in fact, Palestinian, and were, in fact, participants in the killing, this would seem very much at odds with the public record of Israeli intelligence operations. Who are they, and what is their alleged involvement? We have no knowledge of the still-new Palestinian legal system, but any international extradition which takes place in less than a month seems, based on experience and knowledge of extraditions between other countries and within the United States, quite rapid.
See also
Robert Mackey’s excellent post, Assassins of Hamas Official Caught on Tape, Dubai Says, which was posted this morning on The Lede. Mr. Mackey makes the case that this is consistent in practice with an Israeli operation. He quotes Irish and British officials denying that the assassins’ Irish and British identity documents were false.
The BBC, in Dubai Hamas killing suspects’ passports ‘faked, reports not only Irish and British officials denying the legitimacy of the documents, but also French and German officials. The suspects used false documents from four countries: 6 British, 3 Irish, one German, and one French. BBC: Pictures of ’11 Europeans’ sought for Hamas killing.The eleven photographs certainly seem to be of people of European origin. The quotation marks around ’11 Europeans’ seem more sensibly to be modifying “European” more than “11.”
If the Israeli government is not responsible for this, its intelligence services probably appreciate the assumption that it is, for purposes of elevating its reputation and deterrence.
The strongest evidence that this was an Israeli operation seems to be that it was done competently. .