Six Degrees of Assassination
One of the key players in the shady world of international networks supplying terrorist groups with weapons and explosives, the Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, was killed in a Dubai hotel by, supposedly, the Mossad.
The operation seems to have been executed seamlessly. At the moment, pictures and names of the Mossad agents (remember that the Mossad has been accused of stealing passports and identities for this operation) are circulating in the media, and as could be predicted, anti-Israel sentiment is getting louder. Interpol seems to have placed the 11 agents on its most-wanted list.
No innocent bystanders were killed, no building was blown up. No, a surgical operation planned by professionals resulted in the death of a terrorist, an evil man with a specific task in the machinery of terrorist acts organized by an anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, anti-Western, pro-mullahs organization called Hamas. The world should rejoice.
In the universe of the Persian Gulf, where cruel, terrorist attacks on innocent civilians are part of the daily routine, this killing was simple and clean. It’s an act the Israeli government, if it really allowed it, should be proud of. As should other governments that oppose terrorism.
Colleagues of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh are targeted in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, and when they are killed in the dirty explosion of rockets fired by drones — often together with innocent civilians — the Western media doesn’t seem to bother with who killed the terrorists: it was a silent plane without pilots (who are in a hangar somewhere in the Nevada desert), and the deaths are part of an ongoing war.
“Islamists clashed with Fatah gunmen in a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon on Monday, killing at least two people,” the Jerusalem Post reported on February 15. That’s a 100% higher casualty figure. But not an echo in the Western media.
No, what is going on here is the fact that Mahmoud al-Mabhouh — again, an evil man — was killed by Jews. Not by a drone, not by Arabs. No, he was killed, supposedly, by a group of highly trained and cool Jews, who just left their homes and found disguises in order to kill their enemy. That’s why this killing is catching the Western media’s attention — and condemnation.
it is hard to believe Mossad would be surprised by, and allow themselves to be filmed by, surveillance video cameras. Such cameras are omnipresent these days, from the local ATM to traffic cams. The whole thing seems sloppy. If it was Mossad, they are slipping.
It seems to me that it’s certain that this was Mossad, or at least Israel or someone aligned with Israel. Most of the issues that you bring up might be explained by other factors. The 11 participants, for instance, could be a function of the fact that the “conspirators” needed to be able to think on their feet and change plans due to changing circumstances. It wouldn’t surprise me if it were revealed that they had a variety of other ways to kill this guy, including but not limited to guns, a bomb, poison, knives, etc. Smothering him with a pillow was probably the quietest, and the hardest to trace, but other methods probably would have been used if it wasn’t practical, for some reason. If they used guns or a bomb, they might have wanted some extra personnel to hold off the cops while everyone escapes, create diversions, etc. It’s also possible that the local police misconstrued things; some of the individuals could have been anything from con men to refugees of some sort, or maybe even other Arabs shopping for guns or whatever.
The passports all belonging to Jews might be easily explained. The individuals in question presumably have traveled to Israel, or perhaps they have relatives who have. They might also have relatives in their countries who were willing to purloin their passports, and allow them to be copied before they were returned. Intelligence agencies do this sort of thing a lot, or at least they used to…you’d think they’d be more modern at this point, but maybe not.
Anyway, the point of the article (why don’t we do this?) is an interesting one. This operation, this time, worked quite well, but assassinations in the past haven’t always gone as well. The Israelis famously shut down an assassination project years ago after they mistakenly killed a Moroccan restaurant waiter in Lillehammer, Norway, right in front of his wife and child. The Israelis thought the guy was a rather prominent Palestinian terrorist living in hiding, but instead he was exactly what he purported to be. The whole fiasco hit Israel with considerable negative publicity, and paying damages to the dead guy’s family two decades later (while disavowing any responsibility for the actual killing) didn’t help any. If you think about it for a second, shooting a missile at someone is inherently dangerous: you can understand how someone else could get killed. An assassination team, on the other hand, is supposedly more surgical…so if you get the wrong guy, the negative publicity is much more persistent and deep.
There could hve been decoys. The people may be irrelevant to the case. His door locked from the inside and the chain was secure. The pics are very inconclusive.
Two Palestinians have been taken into custody for this murder. Still, the whole performance seems a bit subtle for either Hamas or the PA. Their preferred methods have traditionally been car bombs or tossing their victims from a rooftop.
Re: option 1. He was supposed to have his bodyguards with him, but they had a problem somewhere along the line and didn’t make it to Dubai. So maybe 11 were needed to deal with them as well.
Assuming the info we now have is correct — and I’m including the reports that some Palestinians have been arrested in Jordan and Syria — I’d go for option 2 with Fatah as the culprits. There was no need to use the names of actual people in Israel when they used fake names for the others. It’s like they were giving everyone a big hint. So Fatah kills an enemy and gets to blame it on the Jews.
It’s interesting that in the 27-minute video, we don’t get to see what’s going on in the corridor while the murder is taking place, even though they showed the victim going to his room earlier. I don’t know what that’s supposed to entail. Maybe option 5.
There’s also option 7, that it’s Mossad people but a rogue operation rather than an authorized one.
Lots of missing pieces in this puzzle. How do we know at which level of competence the Dubai police operates? Can we trust the press to report the story straight? Who identified the victim, with what degree of credibility?
When the nuclear plant was destroyed in Syria, the Israeli were very smart not to brag about it, which made it easier for the Syrians not to complain either. Mission accomplished, no media circus, no diplomatic eruption, a masterful strike!
Perhaps the Mossad did manage to eliminate Mahmoud al-Mabhouh without any fanfare, stealthily enough to allow Hamas not to admit the loss either. The precedent of the Syrian nuclear facility suggest the plausibility of another skillful execution.
If this was a Mossad job we would not have heard anything about it, the team would have used untraceable passports not those stolen from brits or irishmen. I believe this was a false flag assassination that is hiding something bigger.
Option 7: The operation was carried out by a hit team composed of the people on TV’s NCIS. If looked at closely, the woman, looks like Ziva. This explains why everything was on CCTV, it was just a test run for the real show.
If you read reconstruction of the hit (or enough spy novels) the need for 11 or more actors is obvious: they did not know where the target will be staying. It takes a lot of people to stake out the likely hotels and then to tail the target all the way to his room in order to find out the room number. If they had more peope they wouldn’t need to use disguises for tailing.
I see no possible reason for Mossad to use identities of British Israelis. On the other hand, if I am living in Britain (and don’t have Mossad’s resources), a British passport for a stolen identity is the easiest to obtain. I am betting on the Arab hitmen theory.
Israeli arms buyer murdered in Dubai.
Dubai announces it is 99% sure it was Hamas, enlists Interpol and its entire police force to find evidence. A month long investigation proceeds after which CCTV proof of the culprits is released to the press.
Interpol declares it a first priority investigation to capture the perpetrators and swears it will stop at nothing to bring the guilty to justice!
British, French and Germans announce they are SHOCKED that Hamas used forged passports from their countries!!! SHOCKED!!!!
UK Foreign Secretary pledges on his honor that he “will get to the bottom of this!!!”
British, French and Germans warn Hamas and threaten that there will be no more money coming from Europe unless Hamas identifies and gives up the killers immediately to the ICC.
Hamas is roundly and repeatedly denounced with a constant drumbeat of condemnation throughout the world and in the world media, demanding retribution for this criminal conspiratorial action!!
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The “world” is horrified that a confirmed killer and a leader of Hamas, a vicious terrorist organization, is deftly and rigteously executed while on a trip to Dubai to purchase munitions which will be used to kill many more innocents — and “the world” responds by loudly and angrily condemning Israel — which may not even be guilty.
Which are the disgraciados?
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option 1 they need these 11 men because Mossad always operates with teams, the least 4
Also these persons bought their plane billet at the last moment, when the plane was still on the tarmak, so Hamas wasn’t warned about these new departures, this is why Mabhouh wasn’t worried of the imminent attack.
option 2 this isn’t the first time that Mossad used alived persons passports
Don’t forget that Mossad eliminate a HBZ leader in 2007 in Damascus, that other “eliminations” don’t even come to be known by papersbut still some spectacular ones
http://www.drzz.info/article-20617647.html (click on the english flag)
The fact that cameras were filming the “men”, the falsh identities, processed of a clever scenario, it adds more confusion.
Now UK, France, aren’t in bad term with Israel, and I don’t think that the fact of having used european identities will enact some repression on Israel. Mabhouh wasn’t innocent !
Question : is there proof that the “victim” was actually killed ? It may not have been Mossad – it may not have been a hit at all, a defection perhaps.
Just asking…..
The notion that Jews are able to protect themselves, AND to exact Jewish justice on their tormentors, makes our enemies both crazed AND humiliated.
The fact of the matter is – those who wag their fingers, and tongue lash Israel for eliminating a mass Jew killer, are themselves up to their eye balls in aiding and abetting terrorists through their immoral posturings.
The fact that NO innocents were killed due to the operation rankles them even more. It proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that when Jews exact justice they do so against the truly guilty. Therefore, when civilians are killed during IDF operations it makes nonsense of their charges that Israel purposefully targets innocents.
In any case, I salute Dagan for an efficient operation-of course they did it-as should everyone with a moral backbone.
Whoever the assassins were, they would have been more productive and beneficial if they had taken out the evil court that is prosecuting Geert Wilders.
Anyone who thinks that a two man team would have been preferable to a team of this size, with its ability to provide surveillance and logistics support for a high-risk job of this critical nature, knows nothing about 3rd country intelligence operations.
You make a good point. We’ll send one missile in to kill a bad guy and any number of innocents standing around him to avoid risking our people. Mossad risked eleven people in order to make sure they killed the right guy and no one else. Maybe Interpol should put Obama and Biden on the most wanted list.
There are just too many loose ends for me to believe it was done by Israelis. The world is screaming about this and taking pleasure in trying to blame the Mossad, but there are just some things about the story that lead some of us to wonder. Using Jewish passports, more film time than a movie star, and if that weren’t enough, a small army. It just doesn’t sound right. Think someone is trying to blame the Mossad to cover themselves. Regardless, whoever did it deserves a big thank-you!
This is a great whodunnit.
The passport shenanigans don’t really jive with the Mossad MO. It is not professional and causes a whole tangle of international ire.
I suspect the Egyptians with, perhaps, some Fatah involvement. Easy to get passports to counterfeit because so many Europeans visit as tourists. They also had the motive, having just built a wall around their section of Gaza to keep Hamas out.
Or maybe it was some of the dude’s disgruntled colleagues who were angered he was using UN aid money for prostitutes and coke instead of guns and rockets.
Don’t know what happened here but it was not Mossad. There is no way in hell that the Dubai authorities could have performed the due diligence required to come up with the video and confirmation of persons involved so quickly. You are looking at months of research but the dead give-away is the one piece of video tracking a suspect who they didn’t know was a suspect yet. Whatever went down was not a Mossad hit.
As Mel Gibson might ask… does the author have a dog in this race?
skin in the game?
One man’s Terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter – and although I may be a lonely voice on this website… I think the monsters in the IDF who use Pali kids for target practice – or dump white phosphorus on innocents of Gaza… or the beasts who sell their body parts for cash…. now THERE are candidates for assassination.
But this is asymmetrical warfare at its most loathsome. And the 5th of humanity that is saying “Enough” – and “Never Again” – is drowned out by voices like the author… who most certainly have a dog in this race.
How about we hear from somebody not related to the perps?
#20 G Marks
Well now, ya got the “lonely voice” part right at least. I don’t usually dignify this kind of drivel with a reply but, friend, you really need to stay away from those jihadist websites–you’re starting to mimic those morons. Nice usage of the word “loathsome” but I’m thinking the fifth you’re familiar with has nothing to do with humanity.
P.S. Mel Gibson, huh? Middle East Relations Expert indeed.
@19:
You are incorrect.
My question is how did they lure al-Mabhouh into the trap? He left his sanctaury in Damascus and set up in a Dubai hotel alone. Then he taped that confession just two weeks earlier.
My theory is that whatever he thought he was going to do he didnt want Hamas to know about it. He also must have trusted his contact a great deal to take such a risk. Someone he knew well was in on it at the start. Double agent perhaps? Honey trap? Caught with his hand in the Hamas cookie jar and promised rescue by someone else?
Surely he checked in with the other Hamasies before he left. Anyway someone will write a book in a few years and tell the whole story and it will make a terrific movie.
@ G Marks:
“dog in this race” is a poor metaphor for “Jew”. I have never known any Jews with the slightest interest in dog racing, or any kind of racing really. Maybe “Matzoh Ball in this soup” might work. You see, that would be clever and anti-semitic at the same time and you could come off as seeming smart rather than just another ignorant troll.
Spindok
SpinDok;
His security johnnies couldn’t get on the plane with him because it was full and so they came to Dubai on the next plane.
The room had no sign of forced entry. Maybe he knew his killers. Or they dressed up as hotel staff and got him to open the door.
Boojum
the blond “irish” woman knocked at his door
Whichever group starts pushing option #7, Hamas, Mossad, Fatah or whomever, will reveal who Oscar the Grump is working for.
More likely a Crip on Blood issue, or even interal disagreement. But with regard to the number of agents needed, 11 sounds good. You need those for surviellance and security.
The Israelis did it, IMHO. They knew they would be blamed whether they did it or not…so they did it, since it needed doing. The resulting uproar is what always happens when Jews kill Muslims or Christians in self defense, and this was a strategic and tactical act of self defense.
Steven
option#7: Mahmoud , aware that he was being stalked killed himself in an effort to throw his pursuers off track. (Those Arabs, clever rascals)
option#8: The dead man is actually Mahmouds identical twin brother, Mohmud, who, having abandomed Islam and embracing the Hebraic faith, enraged his family (this way, the jokes is on on the Jews..somebody should check to see if the dead man still has a foreskin).
option#8: Mahmoud is not dead. The ‘body’ was a demo Japanese sex doll. Don’t assume that the Dubai medical examiner knew what he was doing.
option #9: Mahmoud ran away with the cup, and the dish ran away with the spoon.
In contrast to our beloved President, rightly describe as a ‘slow learner’, the Israelis are quick studies and have fully digested the lessons of history vis a vis their continued existence. They cannot rely upon the support or good will of liberal progressives, socialist Eurotrash, academic elites, smug Episcopalians, corrupt Catholics, ‘moderate’ Arabs, indeed, nobody. So to guarantee their own well being, they take care of business. And if that sticks in the craws of their critics, TS.
G MARKS
Back again, eh, 62 year old pussy? I figured that you were out licking your balls, girlie-boy. You know, it’s OK if you want to dance around in white sheets and a hood. Just keep the noise down.
Of course the Israelis did it. They used IDs of people who were unlikely to ever travel and even if they did travel to Dubai, the authorities would know they didn’t do it because their faces wouldn’t have matched the biometrics recorded at Dubai airport (you better believe the Emiratis could put it all together that quickly). Whoever did this knew that it was a once in a lifetime trip to the UAE for those operators and very likely these people were hand-picked from IDF units and trained for a once-off mission.
It’s also a message. I think the Israelis were sending a message about their reach and fearlessness.
Option 6B: he actually isn’t dead but switched sides.
Option 10: It was an action by the new, secret jewish ‘terrorist / counter-terrorist’ group, composed of former Mossad operatives.
Option 11: UAE did it themselves, and the Israelis are happy to take credit (and create deterrence).
Option 12: he was smuggling a WMD, that is what was shipped out (not his real body), that is why they needed 11 people.
Hasn’t anybody seen the Godfather — you know, the part where, in Italy, Al Pacino’s body guard runs away just before the bomb goes off? Mahmoud’s bodyguards “couldn’t get on the plane?” Huh? Did they forget to make reservations? Or did they take a deal to get free mileage in exchange for being bumped from the flight?
Just too much of a coincidence that he’s killed within the few hours his bodyguards are absent. Duh.
And if the passports used were of Jews … How usual it is for Dubai immigration to see Jews traveling there from Europe for a tennis weekend? Probably, like never?
Are Jews allowed into Dubai?
DON’T MESS WITH OLD WOMEN AND THE ISRAELIS. THEY ARE DOING THE JOB WE SHOUOD BE DOING.
Option #11 Since the people involved were obviously older, maybe it was the Mission Impossible cast and crew who pulled off this caper. For my money, that “Irish” woman involved looks a lot like Ziva of NCIS.
As for who does Oscar the Grump work for? If I told you, I’d have to kill you.
Marie Claude tell the truth, the French did it.
Adina Kutnicki, you think maybe some Chassids did it? After all the most dangerous weapon they ever pick up is a pillow.
I hear a lot of folks commenting on the 11 who are photoed. If you could pull it off with less, why didn’t you? There are probably a ton of things I don’t know about this operation, and I never will. But I still like the result.
One of the nice things about having 11 people photoed, it makes it look like the perps (Mossad, CIA, Boy Scouts, etc.) don’t have good intelligence, or their operatives can’t handle the job with less than 11. It makes them look less effective then they really are. It forces future terrorist supporting nations, and terror organizations, to cast a larger net in future efforts to combat the west. The more questions you force Terror Incorporated to hunt down the answers for, the more work must be done, and more times they have to second guess themselves.
The person who gave the order to kill Hamas leader at Dubai UAE was a British princess, who faced gaza and west bank broadcade last two years 2008 precisely due to translation problem she face at Church of nativity.Gordon Brown staff hash behaviour may because she might have visited United Kingdom prime Minister office.
The British are livid about the fake passports: http://bit.ly/cj27VH
What are the odds he British do ANYTHING to sanction the Israelis, though?