If it’s Monday, it must be (more on) Dubai
Am I fascinated with this story or am I fascinated with this story?
As the MSM continues to report on the huffing and puffing of various Eurocrats about the use of stolen or semi-stolen (who really knows?) passports in the murder of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in January, you have to look around the edges for the real story. And one of those places today is the Chinese news agency Xinhua. The world’s biggest news agency (by a fair amount) often publishes some fascinating material before its censors get their hands in to do their regulating and squashing. Here’s today’s tidbit – Hamas denies Dubai police accusation:
Hamas on Monday denied Dubai police chief’s accusation that a Hamas traitor informed Mossad, Israel’s security intelligence service, about its militant leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh’s visit to Dubai, which led to his assassination on Jan. 20.
Hamas office in Damascus told Xinhua on Monday that “we do not accept the accusation, we will continue our coordination with the Dubai police to complete the investigation.”
Dubai police chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim said an internal “agent” of Hamas leaked the travel information of al-Mabhouh, which resulted in his assassination, calling on Hamas to launch an internal inquiry, the English newspaper of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Gulf News reported on Sunday.
No wonder Hamas was floating their contention over the weekend that Mahbouh got caught because he was making his travel reservations online. (Was it Expedia or Travelocity? … I would recommend Kayak.) They also accused him of sloppy cellphone usage, which would have made him about the dumbest guy in the Middle East. But who knows? In any case, Hamas’ greatest fear – and the fear no doubt of allies in Iran and elsewhere – is now that they have been compromised. That only would make this action a huge success and call to question the whole notion that agents involved were sloppy in being caught on camera. Maybe that was their intention all along – or if not an intention a known possible collateral result which they gave only a shrug.
Hamas is getting a bad press too from Dubai police chief Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim, who the LAT is calling “an acerbic Columbo in an Arabic dishdasha” (good photo at the link), for not taking proper security precautions:
“Mabhouh did not take basic security precautions, and if he had at least one person with him, [the suspects] would not have been able to kill him,” Tamim told the Gulf News, a Dubai-based English-language daily paper.
Well, maybe, maybe not. If Hamas was already compromised, I’m not sure a single security person would have been able to save Mahbhouh, who, after all, had at least eleven against him.
I should also mention Tom Gross’s discussion of the case from last week, which notably contains photos of victims of missiles procured by Mahbouh. When you see the pictures, you don’t really much care how this guy died, just as long as he did. Whereevr the “blame” is assigned, I suspect this all now poised to fade from the front pages and what we learn in the future will be from memoirs, most of which will be self-serving, naturally enough. To be continued. Sometime.
““Mabhouh did not take basic security precautions, and if he had at least one person with him, [the suspects] would not have been able to kill him,” Tamim told the Gulf News, a Dubai-based English-language daily paper.”
Hey, General Tanim: Mabhouh entered Dubai with a false passport. Does this disturb the Government of Dubai, or was the Government of Dubai complicit in accepting this? Before you discuss the additional security measures Mabhouh should have taken, wouldn’t a basic security measure been to keep him out of the country to begin with – you know, Dubai does retinal scans and all that, so they should have been able to identify a repeat visitor to Dubai, particularly one high up in Hamas.
I think Israel’s mistake was that they thought that even if the police in Dubai figured out that it was a murder, that Dubai would keep it quiet. For a country that is trying to become the financial center of the Middle East, they’ve had a lot of bad news lately, and acknowledging that Hamas can operate freely in Dubai is hardly going to act as an incentive for more Western financial firms to set up shop there.
Tom Gross brings some up points I hadn’t thought of:
Roger, the real hypocracy in the media is making a story of whoeverdid the scumbag, not why the target was allowed to roam free by the international community. Attacking the moussad for this is like blasting the Food Channel’s chefs for taking out Hannible Lector.
3. EdGi: Thanks to you, I can’t watch Food Channel any more.
The fun part about this supposed leak is that if Hamas thinks it’s an internal leak, some sort of traitor, it’s probably an electronic leak (an intercept of some sort); on the other hand, if they think it’s electronic, it’s probably some sort of traitor. Said traitor might not necessarily be an Israeli patriot. Hamas, Hezbollah, Fatah, and all of those clowns are halfway between political ideologues and mobsters. They make a lot of money for themselves, dine in fine restaurants, ride around in fancy cars with attendants, all of course while the ordinary citizens of the country dodge the effects of this idiot’s ordinance, or the retaliation to it. Mabhouh might have been ratted out by someone hoping to move up in the organization, replace him and make more money, have more prestige in a better position, etc. Or he might have been stupid and reserved the hotel or flight on the internet. He *was* stupid enough to be walking around without a security detail.
This is a fascinating story on all sorts of levels and thank goodness it happened. Should happen more, in my opinion. When I first heard about it I thought that it sounded like a great spy thriller. A genre which has almost faded completely away with the end of the cold war. Sounds like a book to me, Roger. I’ll be waiting.
All long lasting terrorist movements are also partly big businesses, in the sense that people near the top are competing with each other for the next “promotion”. Sooner or later it has to occur to some of them that it would be awfully convenient if their main rivals got killed by the counter-terrorist organization, and they could easily take steps to make that happen. This incentive also works the other way, unfortunately. If a government couterterrorist bureau starts to lose funding because the terrorism it is fighting seems less threatening, it would be awfully helpful if the terrorists managed to pull of a big one — so it would be tempting for the counterterrorists to let the other side know where the easy opportunities are. I’m afraid that, if you think about it, our society is shot through with these sorts of institutionalized frenemy incentives, with only the personal loyalty of the institution’s employees to keep it in check.
I think I mentioned the possibility of Egyptian and/or Jordanian involvement several days ago.
Remember, Hamas only has one friend (Iran), and many enemies.
I agree with skeptics in a thread down the page: isn’t everyone taking at face value the word of the Dubai police? How does anyone know any of this is true? Why would the Dubai police make up such a story? I’m no mystery writer, but I can think of two reasons immediately. One, because the murder took place, the police are embarrassed about it, don’t have a clue who did it and are seeking to blame it on the easiest target: Israel. In short, CYA.
Another reason: because the Gulf state Arabs fear and loath Iran, Hamas’s sponsor, took out the guy themselves (or captured him,) and are misdirecting Hamas as to who dunnit.
Pardon me if I don’t ascribe the credibility to the Dubai police I would to a truly credible agency, like, say the U.N….er, never mind.
Meanwhile in todays headlines:
New Suspects In Dubai Killing
(al-reuters) UAE police today announced an additional 7.3 million suspects involved in the Dubai assasination of a prominant Hamas activist. Detectives involved in the case told reporters “We are now certain that these individuals were all involved. Fortantely, the vast majority of them are trying to hide in a small narrow section of land along the Mediterranian coast which should help in serving arrest warrents. We believe that they may have has assistance from an addition 7 million or so scattered mostly in North America and europe. We are planning to start in Florida where they is a high concentration of such individuals, and work our way up from there.” British authorities are cooperating with their UAE counterparts “Frankly, the whole matter smells of pickled herring, if you know what I mean” said Pimsly Shufflebottom, of Whitehall. ” having had a list of suspects prepared long before the deed was executed or even planned is greatly aiding our end of the investigation”
Spin
Things get even stranger:
“Dubai police on Wednesday added 15 new names to a list of suspects wanted over the killing.”
…
“Once their part in the operation was completed, the suspects again dispersed to different parts of the world, with two suspects leaving Dubai by boat for Iran, it said.”
Really? Mossad agents end an operation by fleeing to IRAN? Really?
On top of Realist’s information, there was this new story:
Hamas founder’s son was Israeli agent
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35557101/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/
I’m gonna go with an opportunist is looking to spread FUD and really stir the internal Hamas strife. This has to be an intelligence officers dream – plenty of leeway to spread all sorts of smoke to obscure whatever really went on.
I am adding a possibility to my amusing conspiracy theory…
As others have said above, these terror groups quickly become organized-crime syndicates, and do business with them as well as governments like Iran.
Now who might this guy have been doing business with who might be able to steal Israeli passport numbers?
The Russian Mafia…
These are some random thoughts I’ve sent to Cummins of the WSJ.
Mr. Cummins,
I now have read two of your articles. Good work, thank you.
1. I thought the Austrian connection might have the best chance of factually establishing who was behind the Dubai debacle. After all, if the Austrian operatives were the HQ for the operation, then they might have felt secure because they were out of the framework of the situation in Dubai, then maybe their ids might be less concealed or the actual id easier traced, as happened with the CIA and the Italian kidnapping years back. So I searched the English language newspapers for Austria and was amazed at how little interest I could find on the subject or their connection at all.
—Why has the Dubai police not released the actual phone number in question? Was it a land line, which could be reversed read for an address, or was it a hand phone and if so who was paying its bill and could tracking be done on it?
—Why has Dubai let Austria off the hook here and the trail there to go so cold?
—Could the WSJ turn one of its European reporters onto questioning the Austrian gov, and asking questions about their investigation results?
2. You might want to get your paper to get you access to Stratfor’s subscriber articles. Stratfor says that the US attempts to wean Syria away from Iran has lead to a split among Hamas and Hezbollah inter circles, as some want to remain loyal to Iran and other to accept US sponsored and Turkey negotiated deals that exclude Iran, and so the killing might be a sign of this division.
(Is this Stratfor/Israeli disinformation to divide H and H?)
Could the two suspected killers going by boat to Iran fit this scenario? Is it ridiculous to say that Iranian assets could have worked an operation with Israel? Then how ridiculous is it that two Pals are already arrested for working with the Mossad and a Hamas leaders is likewise accused by Dubai? Could trust have been maintained to carry out a hit without betrayal between any of these erstwhile enemies?
Stratfor also a a more detail account of the credit card companies and their strong Israeli connections, even more than your own well stated depiction.
3. Has anyone looked at the report that the victim went to the airport to fly to Dubai and the victim found that his armed guards could not get seats on his plane and so he flew on alone, while the body guards were booked for the next day.
—Could the full plane be checked out to see if it was in fact full or was there some crafty cunning done here to separate him from his protection creating a window of opportunity in Dubai? And who on the ground at the departure airport could have arranged this?
Did the body guards actually come to Dubai the next day or is this whole side story not true?
4. Who was paying the bills for the credit cards used? That is, who funded this operation? Can this be found out, despite the possible obscuring of this info by the ostensibly Israeli loyal owners of the credit card companies?
5. Could not Interpol be asked to run facial id software on the photos provided by Dubai?
6. What is gained by using real peoples names in doctored passports, especially Israeli names if the Mossad did this? If it helps to use real names, why not non-Israeli names, who are unlikely to come stumbling into Dubai of private business? Or, do you use Israeli names living in Israel because if any of them goes to travel, you can stop them or make sure they arn’t going towards the Mid-East? Hmmmm
What is the significance of the real passports mostly being from Immigrants to Israel? Did some outfit have access to those files and not other Israeli passports? Say, some Russian Mafioso?
Is it true that the Mossad is forbidden by law to use Israeli names in any operation? Do immigrants slip under this law?
Could Dubai have assassinated the Iranian backed victim because Dubai is Sunni and wants to undermine Iran and so putting out the cover-up disinformation that everyone is eating up?
Has Israel worked with Pals in order to promote their divide and conqueror grand strategy.
7. Is it true that Egypt and Jordan have both put the victim in prison for a year in the past? Then could they have done this assassination and blamed it on the Mossad?
8. What is the source of reported claims that:
—The hotel room was bolted and chained from the inside? (that would mean they had to break down the door to get in!?) Are there spyware gadgets that can close a deadbolt from the outside? Or, open it, and do hotels have such so they don’t have to breakdown doors?
—The victim was shot with a stun gun and/or a lamp was used to try to electrocute him and electrode burns marks were found on his body, even on his scrotum!?
—That murders tried to open his hotel room door with an electronic device and this did or did not work?
—Are there spyware gadgets that can control video cameras, if so why did the hit team not use them? Would use of such gadgets reveal itself to security people monitoring the cameras or are there such people or is there just recordings?
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