Mossad's fake Brits assassinate Hamas chief in Dubai

[redadare]

It was a murder plot all captured on CCTV: the victim, and the disguised hit squad who stalked then killed him in a hotel room in Dubai. But who murdered Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, and why?
Panorama's Jane Corbin tracks down the answers in Israel, Gaza and Dubai, and shows how British passports and stolen identities were used in a crime which was never meant to be revealed to the world.

And what a typical ZBBC pice of s#*~e it was too. With Jane Corbin looking like a schoolgirl in awe of the brave Mossad agents, never once questioning the ethics of extra-judicial killings, strengthening Israels story of who the murdered man was, and not asking why the other British passport holders were suddenly unobtainable.

[TonyGosling]

Was it? Shame
still it's online for a bit now here
But is there any evidence that the bescarved interviewee is in fact Mahmoud al-Mabhouh?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... s_to_Kill/

And what a typical ZBBC pice of s#*~e it was too. With Jane Corbin looking like a schoolgirl in awe of the brave Mossad agents, never once questioning the ethics of extra-judicial killings, strengthening Israels story of who the murdered man was, and not asking why the other British passport holders were suddenly unobtainable.

[Frank Freedom]

Just an observation,but isn't there an "orgy of evidence" thing going on at present?

[Disco_Destroyer]

http://english.moqawama.org/essaydetail ... 72&cid=215


Dubai Police Chief Says Mossad Threatened to Kill Him over Mabhouh Investigations
Local Editor

General Dahi Khalfan Tamim, Dubai Police Chief, said that he has received several threats from Mossad-connected individuals, threatening to kill him if he does not keep quite over details related to Mahmoud Al Mabhouh assassination in Dubai.

After Mahmoud Al Mabhouh's assassination, General Dahi presented publically photos of suspected assassins, accusing the Mossad of the murder.

This lead the Mossad to send General Tamim a threatening email which read, "Protect your back if u plan on keeping your tongues loose".

The second death threat, according to Tamim, was made by a phone call to one of Tamim's relative, where the latter was asked to convince Tamim into remaining silent, adding that the caller was later on proven to be a former Mossad agent.

Also in the case of Mahmoud Al Mabhouh, Generla Tamim's investigations further elaboratied, where he told Al Ittihad newspaper that a Western country arrested one of the suspected "Israeli" Mossad assassins, where the UAE asked for this suspect to be handed over to its judicial authorities.

General Dahi Khalfan Tamim previously released the names and photographs of suspected assassins in the assassination of Mahmoud Al Mabhouh, all of whom had entered Dubai by forged European passports.
28 View | 01-10-2010 | 13:06

[cem]

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http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=193890


Shin Bet confirms killing terrorist in Gaza car bomb

by Yaakov Katz and Khaled Abu Toameh, Jerusalem Post, 3 November 2010

Israel resumed its targeted assassinations in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday after a senior al-Qaida-affiliated terrorist was killed in what had initially appeared to be a car bomb in Gaza City.

Later in the evening, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) confirmed that together with the Israeli Air Force, it had carried out an operation to kill 25-year-old Mohammed al-Namnam, a top operative with the Army of Islam, a radical Palestinian terror group affiliated with al-Qaida and involved in the 2006 abduction of Gilad Schalit.

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[TonyGosling]

How did the assassins obtain British Passports? - Middle East Monitor
The involvement of six British passport holders in the killing of senior Hamas official, Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, last month in Dubai was described in the Guardian today as "an extraordinary tale of ...
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com › 20140128-how-did-the-assassins-obtain-british-passports


The involvement of six British passport holders in the killing of senior Hamas official, Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, last month in Dubai was described in the Guardian today as "an extraordinary tale of modern-day espionage." The Brits in question have denied any part in the assassination and have proclaimed their innocence stating that their passports must have been forged, a line of argument that the British Foreign Office seems to be supporting. Prime Minister Gordon Brown today promised that a full investigation will be launched into the connection of the British passports with the murder. His intervention, viewed by some as belated, demonstrates the gravity of the situation and the serious diplomatic and international ramifications that may now stem from this one event.
All the hallmarks of a Mossad assassination

Whether or not these particular individuals were actually involved is yet to be seen but what is clear is that when such a high profile Hamas figure is murdered, there is really only one logical culprit; Mossad. For 21 years this individual had eluded the Israelis. Who else stands to gain from the death of Mabhouh to such a degree that they would employ an assassination squad of at least 11 killers? The Telegraph today confirmed that "in the past year, Al-Mabhouh had moved to the top of Mossad's list of targets." Mossad already has a well established record of assassinations and botched operations against high profile senior Hamas officials, the attempt on the life of Khaled Meshaal in 1997 being just one example. That failed attempt was carried out on the watch of then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and it looks as though under his watch Mossad may be implicated once again.

Mossad agents also have a track record of using passports from other countries to circumvent the obvious obstacle they would face when trying to enter an Arab country with an Israeli passport. This has been a clearly documented Mossad tactic. Author Paul McGeough gives some examples in his book "Kill Khalid – The failed Mossad assassination of Khaled Meshaal and the rise of Hamas" when he discussed the case of the would-be assassins of Khaled Meshaal.

He writes,

"Shawn Kendall and Barry Beads, whose identities had been assumed by the Mossad agents arrested in Amman, were Canadian Jews living in Israel who had been asked if their passport details might be "borrowed" by one of the Israeli security services. These were not isolated cases. A former Canadian kibbutznik emerged to reveal that Israeli agents had gathered up passports on a kibbutz where he had worked in the late 1970s and early 1980s. A Canadian diplomat in the region would explain later that the Israeli authorities had proved adept at extracting current or expired passports by pressuring Canadian passport holders living in Israel to view their willingness to lend their identities to the authorities as a test of their loyalty to Israel."(p.222)

Similarly he also recounts how

"In 1974, about fifty blank Canadian passports disappeared from a vault at the Canadian Embassy in Vienna. In Nicosia a year later, Cypriot authorities seized the kit of a Mossad team after a hotel bombing in which a Palestinian guerrilla leader was killed. The passport used by one of the Israeli hit men bore a number that revealed it to be from among the fifty stolen in Vienna."(p.221)

The murder of Al-Mabhouh certainly bears many of the hallmarks of a Mossad attack, but what does this mean for Britain and what are the implications this murder has for our country in terms of our relationship with Israel and the larger Arab world?
Scenario One – Mossad are compromising the safety of British citizens

There are two likely scenarios. The first scenario is that the dual British-Israeli citizens are telling the truth, are wholly innocent and had nothing to do with the murder, in which case the killers somehow managed to steal their identities and obtain their passports via forgery, theft etc.. If, as the British Foreign Office are claiming, their passports were forged then this raises questions relating to the British Home Office and their security measures regarding the identities of its citizens. How was this allowed to happen?

It raises serious concerns relating to the laxity that the government has previously shown towards the personal information of its citizens. To give just a few examples, in 2008 alone Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, had to admit that CDs with the private details of 25 million child benefit claimants and their parents had "gone missing" in the post; Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary, announced that a hard disk containing the private information relating to three million learner drivers had gone missing; and Jacqui Smith confirmed that a private firm had downloaded the details of thousands of criminals held on a memory stick. Such breaches in security relating to the way our private information is held becomes more ominous when events like this occur and we are forced to ask, into who's hands does such "lost" information fall and for what nefarious purposes can it be used.
Scenario Two – British citizens involvement in the operation

The second is that the British people in question are involved, in one way or another, as the Dubai authorities claimed after revealing their passport details. Such involvement may entail them having provided genuine passports as was the case in the failed assassination attempt of Khaled Meshaal by two Israeli-Canadian citizens. If that is so, and it remains to be seen whether that is in fact the case, taking into consideration that the Israeli-British citizens deny any knowledge or participation in this operation, it falls on the British authorities, as in any other crime involving its citizens, to launch a full investigation into the facts. It is not enough to take protestations of innocence at face value in a high profile case such as this, one which could become the catalyst for sparking off more international tensions in an already inflamed region. A thorough investigation is certainly required. No stone must be left unturned. If it materialises that they are involved, in any way, it raises serious questions as to why British citizens were doing Israel's dirty work in the first place.

Furthermore, in light of the special relationship that exists between Israel and Britain and shared intelligence resources, were the killers acting with the knowledge and complicity of persons within the British establishment or were they able to operate under the radar of British intelligence? As Robert Fisk rightly asks, why did the British government not react immediately after the Dubai authorities informed them about these passports six days before they made it public? In all cases, this is an issue of grave concern for all British citizens and a matter of serious widespread implication for our government.

What is striking about the media coverage thus far is how easy it has been for the dual Israeli-British citizens involved in this saga to shift attention away from themselves. The press largely seem to have taken their explanation at face value and have run with the stolen identity angle raising no other possibilities. It begs the question that if these were British Muslim defendants who had been identified as assassins through their passports, would the media be quite so forgiving before a throughout investigation had been launched? Unlikely.

It should also raise a serious red flag for the British government if one of their staunchest allies, without their knowledge or complicity, stole and used the identities of British citizens to enter a foreign land and commit a murder which has now put the lives of those citizens, and indeed the safety of all Brits travelling abroad, in serious jeopardy.

Furthermore, it is well known that, if Mossad carried out this act, which seems to be entirely plausible, then they did so with the full knowledge and approval of the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who would have signed off on the mission. The Telegraph today cites Meir Amit, the ex-Director of Mossad who said "Each execution must be sanctioned by the incumbent prime minister. Any execution is therefore state-sponsored." If that is indeed the case, then once again, Britain must surely revaluate its relationship with Israel, a country whose military has not only been found to have committed war crimes but also does not hesitate to send out its own agents disguised as British citizens to carry out extra-judicial killings, murders, in foreign lands.

Former Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell and current member of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee this morning called on the Foreign Office to demand an urgent explanation from the Israeli authorities. "If the Israeli government was party to behaviour of this kind it would be a serious violation of trust between nations," he said. "If legitimate British passport holders were put at risk it would be a disgrace. Given the current speculation, the Israeli government has some explaining to do and the ambassador should be summoned to the Foreign Office to do so in double-quick time."

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

[TonyGosling]

Dubai Hamas assassination: how it was planned

Dressed in tennis gear and carrying racquets and balls, the guests who wandered through the lobby of Dubai’s al-Bustan Rotana hotel on Jan 19 couldn’t have looked less threatening.

By Duncan Gardham and Duncangardham 17 February 2010 • 8:30am

Dubai Hamas assassination: how the plot was planned

But within hours they and nine accomplices had carried out the ruthlessly efficient assassination of the Hamas military Commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who had just a few seconds’ warning of his fate as the killers overpowered him in his room.

The murder bears the hallmarks of a meticulously-planned operation by the Israeli intelligence service Mossad, though Israel has so far refused to say whether it was involved.

What is beyond doubt, however, is that the alleged hit team, travelling on forged British, Irish, German and French passports, spent no more than 19 hours in the Gulf state, killing Mr Mabhouh just five hours after he had flown in from Syria.

After trawling through dozens of hours of CCTV footage, investigators have been able to piece together a minute-by-minute reconstruction of how the hit unfolded.

The 11-strong team arrived in Dubai in the early hours of Jan 19 on flights from France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland, dressed as businessmen with trolley bags and laptops and blending in perfectly with other passengers.

As they checked into several different hotels, a young woman carrying a false Irish passport in the name of Gail Folliard, was filmed accepting the help of a porter to carry her bag.

A man using the name Kevin Daveron, and using another fake Irish passport checked into a different room in the same hotel ten minutes later, and at 2.29am a man using a French passport under the name Peter Elvinger arrived at the airport with a jumper slung casually over his shoulders.

“Elvinger”, who is now thought to be the leader of the squad, was met on his arrival by another member of the team, before the two left the airport in opposite directions.

After a few hours sleep the team began to assemble for instructions at a shopping centre, though at no point did any of them call each other – instead they used a series of telephone numbers in Austria, which was described by Dubai investigators as a “command centre” for the operation.

“Elvinger”, now dressed in a striped T-shirt, carrying a rucksack, and wearing a cap to disguise his features, arrived around 10.30am, followed by five other members of the team including the woman.

Two hours later the suspects left, one of them carrying shopping bags, and headed back to their hotels, where they began to check out at around 1.30pm.

“Daveron” went straight to another hotel, where he disappeared into the lavatories, emerging in a wig and glasses, and then on to a third hotel to meet up with the team again.

At 2pm, more than an hour before their target had even arrived in Dubai, the first of several surveillance teams arrived at the al-Bustan Rotana hotel dressed in their tennis gear.

Another team had been sent to an alternative hotel in case Mr Mabhouh checked in there but they left when they later received a call to say their intended victim had checked in at the al-Bustan.

Quite why Mr Mabhouh risked travelling to Dubai from Syria, his home of the past 20 years, remains a mystery, though there have been suggestions that he could have been lured there on the pretext of carrying out an arms deal for Hamas.

He arrived in Dubai using the name Mahmoud Abdul Ra’ouf Mohammed at 3.20pm and was immediately spotted at the airport by a member of another surveillance team who had been expectantly lying in wait.

As he arrived at the al-Bustan hotel, the “tennis players”, one of whom appeared to be wearing a false moustache and glasses, got into the lift with him and followed him to room 230.

They then passed on the details of the room number to “Elvinger”, possibly using a radio worn on the wrist, enabling “Elvinger” to check into room 237, across the corridor from Mr Mabhouh.

At 4pm a new surveillance team arrived at the hotel wearing track suits, T-shirts and caps and carrying shoulder bags, to help the tennis players keep an eye on their target.

Mr Mabhouh left the hotel at 4.23pm, followed closely by one of the surveillance team, just before “Elvinger” arrived to check into room 237 where he was joined by the woman and “Daveron”.

While the Hamas leader was out, the hit squad busily got to work trying to break into his room. Four burly men, with caps pulled down over their faces, arrived at 6.32pm, followed by another woman wearing a floppy hat, who has not been identified, and a man in a straw boater who took over surveillance from the tennis players.
The assassins tried to break into Mr Mabhouh’s room, and attempted to re-programme the door lock as the innocent-looking couple kept lookout in the hallway.
They were disturbed by a guest returning to her room and police believe they had to abandon their original plan – probably involving lying in wait for Mr Mabhouh inside his room – and decided instead to fool him into opening it when he returned.
When Mr Mabhouh arrived back at the hotel at 8.24pm, dressed in a checked shirt, jacket and jeans and carrying a white plastic bag, he had just minutes to live.
After he went back to his room, the female member of the hit team emerged from her room, grinning broadly, as the four burly members of the alleged assassination team went to work.
Footage of what happened next has not been released by police, but at some point during the 22 minutes which followed, Mr Mabhouh probably opened his door to his killers, who pinned him down and suffocated him.
They somehow managed to lock the door from the inside and put the latch and chain in place before they left.
Tellingly, when the four alleged assassins caught a lift back down to the lobby, one of them was wearing a bandage on his arm.
By 10.30pm the woman and “Daveron” were at Dubai airport to catch a flight to Paris, followed over the next 12 hours by the rest of the team, who flew to such scattered destinations as Frankfurt, Hong Kong and South Africa.
By the time Mr Mabhouh’s body was found at 1.30pm on Jan 20, when he failed to check out of his room, his killers were thousands of miles away.

The assassination was, as the Dubai authorities have been at pains to point out, “carried out by a professional team that is highly skilled in these kinds of operations”.