back to article Interpol issues arrest warrant for fake passport hit team

International police agency Interpol has out put stop and detain notices for 11 suspects reckoned to have used fake passports to enter the UAE before taking part in the murder of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai last month. The development came as UK officials said that a preliminary investigation showed that six …

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  1. Ian 62
    Flame

    Old documents used...Here it comes..

    "However a Foreign Office spokesman told El Reg that it has already been established that all the suspect passports were forgeries of older passports without biometric chips"

    So how long before the FCO announcement... "We're recalling all old documentation and it MUST be replaced by biometric ones" ?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Donations from Phantom Brits?

    If you have a fake British passport, you could always open a bank account, buy a house, make donations to MPs with pro-Israel views, even complain to the BBC about their news coverage.

    And it would appear to come from British people and thus be legal to donate to an MP, a way of laundering a bribe.

    It appears that the UK, France, and Germany need to compare the list of people who have emigrated to Israel against the list of people who have opened bank accounts, bought houses, made donations, voted, flown on aircraft. Indeed all the other things someone with a fake ID could do.

    Because it's unlikely that the ID was only used for the most extreme misused possible (a murder abroad), and not used for all the lesser abuses it could have been put to.

    Do they have Palestinian documents too? The mischief Mossad could get up to, with fake identity trails for Palestinians are endless.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    WTF?

    "It says it is publishing the (false) names and pictures of suspects as fraudulently used on the passports in" order to limit the ability of accused murderers from traveling freely using the same false passports"."

    Like they're really going to use those passports again. With that level of stupidity it's a wonder interpol ever catch anybody.

  4. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    WTF?

    And what's good for the goose?

    Reports are saying al-Mabhouh regularly travelled between Syria and the UAE using five different passports - so where's the Interpol investigation into whether HAMAS has been stealing identities then? Oh, I forgot, he may have been an international terrorist on the watch list, known to have been involved in illegal (yes, illegal under real law, not the "international law" UN baloney that we always hear about Israel) arms smuggling with Iran, but that doesn't mean we can expect the Dubai authourities to be arresting or investigating him. Especially not seeing as all those rockets, mortars and small-arms supplied by Iran are only used by uniformed, regular forces and would never be used by terrorists/geurillas/freedom-fighters (delete depending on your level of guilibility) to kill civillians.

    Just to make my position perfectly clear, I for one would extend my congratulations to the "hit team" on removing such a nasty piece of work from the scene. Maybe I could send them my old passport number?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Congratulations

      to the team from Fatah...

      1. b 3
        FAIL

        sure it was..

        a bunch of corrupt, inept gangsters from the west bank that did it..israel had nothing to do with it...and i'm a potato.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      You win the De Menzies award

      for promoting the concept of guilty until executed.

      And congratulations for responding at level 1 of the Hasbara disinformation sequence.

    3. b 3
      WTF?

      stunnning..

      this supposedly moral country gets a pass for assassination, yet these "terrorists" are vilified? orde wingate (of the chindits fame) taught the zionists how to attack..they took it a step further and operated on civilians. "the ethnic cleansing of palestine" by ilan pappe is a 'good' read..so is "overcoming zionism" by joel kovel..also worth a read is "khirbet kizeh" a hebrew book about the clearing of palestinians villages BY FORCE, which is terrorism on a grand scale..i don't see the semitic arabs living in palestine as anything other than trying to get their homeland back or defending themselves, from caucasian crusaders.

      most people havn't the FAINTEST idea about what israel is like, gets up to or thinks about others..truly horrible..truly nasty..but then again, i know a little bit about it, which is why i say these things.

      1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
        FAIL

        Orde Wingate

        Orde Wingate trained a local militia to protect the pipelines in the area from German-supporting Arabs. You did know that the then Mufti of Jerusalem, old Arafat's uncle, was on very good terms with Hitler, didn't you? Or that the Arabs had expressed support for the Nazi plans to eradicate the Jewish race (that same Mufti called the Final Solution a jihad and every Muslims duty whilst he was raising a Bosnian Muslim army to fight alongside the Germans in Yugoslavia)? Or that Britain was at the time fighting Arab rebellions in Iraq that were being supported by the Nazis? Wingate trained the Jews to further the British plans, not some Jewish conspiracy to eradicate Arabs from the Paletine.

        And Wingate did not train members of the Stern Gang or the like, who were mainly drawn from European refugees that arrived after WW2 and had got their training from fighting the Nazis. Whilst Wingate did train some local men that had arrived in the '20s and '30s to settle in new Kibutz groups, he mainly trained locals from families that had lived in the area for hundreds of years. Yes, there have been Jews continually living in the area you would like to give to the Palestinians for thousands of years. So much for "caucasian crusaders" - the Crusaders were Christians, not Jews, and just as intent on oppressing the local Jews as the local Muslims of the day. I'm also guessing your very selective reading missed the point that the Catholic church of the day blamed the death of Jesus on the Jews and used it as an excuse to oppress Jews in Europe, so the Crusaders were certainly not friends to the Jews of ancient Palestine.

        And all your ramblings about the Arabs being driven out of Israel in 1948 are laughable given that the vast majority left voluntarily as the lcoal Arab countries were promising them that they would invade, wipe out the Jews, and then the Arabs could take the Jewish land as well. Don't believe me? How about some Arab newspaper articles then, all of which admit the real reason for the seocnd "Nakbha"?

        Jawad Al Bashiti, Palestinian journalist in Jordan, writing in Al-Ayyam, May 13, 2008: "....the first war between Arabs and Israel had started and the "Arab Salvation Army" came and told the Palestinians: 'We have come to you in order to liquidate the Zionists and their state. Leave your houses and villages, you will return to them in a few days safely. Leave them so we can fulfill our mission (destroy Israel) in the best way and so you won't be hurt.'...."

        Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Palestinian Journalist in PA official daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, December 13, 2006: ".......The leaders and the elites promised us at the beginning of the "Catastrophe" in 1948, that the duration of the exile will not be long, and that it will not last more than a few days or months, and afterwards the refugees will return to their homes, which most of them did not leave only until they put their trust in those "Arkuvian" promises made by the leaders and the political elites....."

        An investigation by an Arab member of the Israeli Knesset, Ibrahim Sarsur, found out that in some areas Arabs were even told that if they didn't leave they would be accused of siding with Israel and killed by the attacking Arab armies. Oh, you didn't know the Israelis have Arab-Israeli politicians in their political system? Excuse me whilst I try to look surprised.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      How do we know?

      See the problem is this information comes from Israel backed by proof of identity documents. But Israel tells us lies, they promised to stop faking British passports and here we are yet again.

      So now we have to reexamine all information that comes from the Israel as unreliable, particular the identity stuff.

      Your approval of the hit team of course and offer of your passport number, with the defence of Israel suggests of course that you believe it was Israel too.

      You note that Mossad chief isn't coming out proud of his actions, they're calling for his arrest now, even just for the identity fraud and there's calls for his resignation even in Israel, the incompetence of the operation alone means his agents will be arrested soon enough. Wigs and glasses aside, they're bone structure and eye sockets just scream their identities.

      Their families and friends must be able to recognise them and there will be a reward for their identity soon.

      It won't be just the EU countries involved. They just happen to get caught using British, French, Irish and Geman passports this time, but other times they've likely used all manner of fake passports, even American ones, so this problem will not go away until somebody high up faces some serious prison time.

      Have they lied to the NSA too about not cloning USA passports?

    5. Steen Hive
      Thumb Up

      Sauce for the goose is sauce for the shill

      In that case, you'll no doubt be equally keen to see the surviving members of Haganah, Irgun, Lehi and the Stern Gang - gun runners and terrorists to a man - get bullets in their skulls, notwithstanding the high positions they hold in the Israeli body politic?

      1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
        FAIL

        <Yawn>

        Or how about we put all the American founding fathers on trial? After all, they raised an illegal army to fight the British, a clear case of treason. And what about the US Civil War - can we try Abe Lincoln for the excesses of some of the militia fighting for the North? Or how about the Italians that killed Mussolini? After all, they didn't give him a really fair trial. Or how about you back away from the keyboard and think for a bit before posting your next bit of drivel. If you had checked, the British forces in the Palestine caught and hung many members of the Jewish terror groups of the day. They also did the same for Arabs caught raiding Jewish communities. Neither side was much loved by the Brits having to keep the two sides apart, and Britain was quite happy to withdraw and let them slug it out.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    assignation attempts?

    Shirley the names on the documents should have been Mr. and Mrs. Smith?

  6. Paul_Murphy

    So, yes, these innocent people will now be hounded.

    Since the names are the ones being searched for, when the real people decide to travel they will be lumped into the group of suspects.

    Nice going Israel, way to make sure the rest of the world wants to help you.

    ttfn

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Black Helicopters

      it's worse than that ...

      I would be amazed if there are some anti-Israeli fanatics out there that - despite the statements from all the authorities involved - would suspect that the real passport holders *must* have been involved somehow, and decide to terminate them with extreme prejudice, just in case. After all if they are willing to blow hundreds of innocent people up with nary a thought, what's the issue with 11 ?

      In fact, if I were in Hamas, I would do that anyway, just to teach Mossad a lesson.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Coat

        whoops !

        That should have read "I would be amazed if there *aren't* some anti-Israeli fanatics out there ...."

        sorry everyone. I'll get my coat.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Totally useless

    The pics bare all classic hallmarks of "natural identity concealment".

    You can sit in front of any of these guys for a whole day and not recognise them if they have taken off the thick rim glasses and shaved off their beards (the ones with) or grown back the hair on their epilated "fake bald" foreheads (the ones pretending to be bald).

    Professional work is professional work. Everyone knows whodunnit and noone can even squeak.

    1. TimeMaster T
      FAIL

      Professionals????

      Sorry, I don't rate these people as professionals.

      A true pro hit would have been one, two at the most, person(s).

      Go in, pattern the target if theres time/need, neutralize target, get out and disappear into the masses with the authorities left clueless.

      These pleebs have sparked an international firestorm that has called a great deal of attention on governments and organizations that would rather not have to deal with this kind of scrutiny.

      1. Will Shaw

        WTF?

        I'd be very, very interested to hear about the professional qualifications by which you'll be backing up that rather definitive statement.

        Though, on the off-chance you actually can, I'd prefer it not be during a personal visit......

  8. ian 22

    So many questions, so few answers

    The bumped baddie was wandering about without bodyguards. It seems they were left in Syria. Why?

    The people in the photos don't look Jewish.

    It seems the baddie had many enemies: the Egyptian Gov., the Palestinian Authority, and yes the Israeli Government. So of course everyone points to Mossad. Seems a premature, even prejudiced to me.

    The hit squad never called each other- all calls were routed through Vienna, much like the Mumbai attackers did. Is there a relationship here?

    The ones who know don't talk, and ones that talk don't know.

    1. b 3

      predudiced..

      sure, because the israelis are SUCH peace loving people! google deir yassin, qana, qibya, the u.s.s. liberty, the lavon affair, the grapes of wrath, this proves israel just wants peace! BWAHAHAHAHA!!

      1. ian 22

        Not to change the subject b3, but...

        Whilst I'm tempted to respond to your one-sided condemnation with a similarly depressing list of atrocities committed by the Arabs, it seems pointless to me. Very much like small children with their "he hit me", "he hit me first" sorts of arguments. In any case, you've revealed your prejudice (or "predudice" as you seem to prefer).

        I don't know this affair proves anything, but I do believe jumping to conclusions based on minimal evidence rarely produces good results. It is possible this was staged the way it was specifically to throw blame on Israel. It is such an easy thing to do.

        Whoever did the deed should be thanked. The man was a religious bigot and a criminal.

        1. Red Bren
          FAIL

          A one-sided condemnation to a one-sided conflict

          One side has one of the most advanced military forces in the world. The other has primitive pipe bombs. One side uses 4 to 6 times the amount of water per head than the other. One side demolishes the infrastructure of the other as a collective punishment. One side has suffered 6 times the civilian casualties of the other and 10 times the child casualties.

          Do you honestly believe both sides deserve equal condemnation?

          1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
            Stop

            RE: A one-sided condemnation to a one-sided conflict

            "Red Bren" - strange how being anti-Israel is so popular with the left, especially considering that Israel has always had more socialist tendencies than any Arab country. In fact, when it was originally established, Israel had such good ties to Soviet Russia, Czecheslovakia and Yugoslavia that the US and UK worried it was going to join the Communist sphere. The Kibutz is still closer to the socialist ideal of a cooperative than anything in the Western or Arabian worlds. But then I suppose that's quickly forgotten when you have someone else doing all your thinking for you.

            "One side has one of the most advanced military forces in the world. The other has primitive pipe bombs....." Ignoring the large amount of sophisticated weaponary that HAMAS has to hand (including the latest anti-tank missiles and artillery rockets), the fact is Israel does not use even a fraction of the force available, otherwise Gaza would just be one long, smoking crater. There is also a simple reason Israel has much better weapons - Israel has a developed population with an economy that thrives on innovation (want to guess where some of the bits in the PC you used to post came from?). On the other side you have the Palestinians, herded into and kept in refugee camps by Arab governments determined to use them against Israel. As someone once observed, winners don't need suicide bombers (or pipe bombs) 'cos they have real bombers.

            "....One side uses 4 to 6 times the amount of water per head than the other...." Maybe the above statement should be changed to winners have modern irrigation and sanitation systems.

            "....One side demolishes the infrastructure of the other as a collective punishment....." Seeing as the destruction is the direct result of HAMAS's own policies of terror attacks on Israel, you could say it's completely self-inflicted. And please see the point above - if Israel really wanted to "punish" the Gazans then they could do a lot, lot worse.

            "....One side has suffered 6 times the civilian casualties of the other and 10 times the child casualties....." By who's figures? I'm guessing the comic ones that come out of the PA, HAMAS or UNWRA. Like the figures for the 2002 Jenin "massacare", where the Fake-istinians claimed a "genocide", with official spokesperson Saeb Erekat claiming 3000 dead, a claim trumpeted around the World by such guillable idiots as yourself. Of course, it wasn't true, with Fatah being caught on video staging a funeral with a living "martyr" (http://israelinsider.com/channels/diplomacy/articles/dip_0204.htm, very funny stuff). Even Fatah had to finally admit there were only 52 dead compared to 23 Israelli soldiers killed, and some of the Palestinian dead had been killed by booby-traps set by their own side. Any claim since made by any Palestinian-linked entity has been treated as suspect as they have a history of lies and propaganda masquerading as fact. Yahoogle Pallywood for a few more examples. Still, 23 dead soldiers was too much for Israel (they actually care about their people, not their "martyrs"), and they retrained and introduced new methods to limit the effects of the Palestinian tactics of hiding amongst civillians in built-up areas where Israel could but will not use the full force of their military. Hence the much lower loss ratio in Operation Cast Lead, figures which I'm sure will have really upset someone like you that hopes to see Israellis dying.

            ".....Do you honestly believe both sides deserve equal condemnation?" No, I don't. I think the Israellis deserve very little if any, whilst the attitude, lies and tactics of the Ummah, the Palestinians and sundry morons like yourself should be exposed and publicly shamed.

            I could suggest a list of reading material to try and remove some of the innaccuracies in your education, but I sense they would be blocked by your prejudices.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Bounty on their heads

      Well the worlds newspapers will have a bounty out for them and no doubt Dubai will add to that bounty if Interpol don't get them first. They did, after all, destroy Dubai reputation as a safe modern country, and newspapers would pay for to get that exclusive! "How we tracked them down when Interpol couldn't"!

      Their family must be concerned for their safety given Mossad boss is fighting for his job and they are expendable. They might find that justifies revealing their identity quickly.

      Their friends must be proud of them and dying to boast, and people who barely know them just want the money.

      So they'll be caught.

      As for your alternate theory of Syria dun it, or Egypt dun it, or Palestinians done it, love it. It adds an incentive for Egypt, Palestinians and Syria to clear their names. Go on keep accusing everyone of being in some complex implausible plot, the more countries accused the more keen they are to catch them.

    3. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      Boffin

      Cough*stereotype*cough?

      "....The people in the photos don't look Jewish....." You mean they don't all have big, hooked noses, swarthy complexions and black, curly hair? The historical Jews of Israel are drawn from exactly the same stock as the local Arabs (note, local Syrian Arabs, not those that invaded from Saudia Arabia in the rise of Islam), and as such look just like Arabs. But, many Jews later settled in Europe and even later America, and intermarried with Caucasians (and other races). This means that many other Israelis look European. This is one of the reasons Mossad has been so successful in the past - they have been able to draw upon a population that did not have a strict racial makeup. This means it was easy to pose as Germans, Irish, Arabs, Americans, even having black Jews spying in Idi Amin's Uganda!

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    quelle surprise?

    colour me surprised if Israel admits to being behind this, assists in "bringing the assassins to justice", or, if any countries in the western world put pressure on Israel to do so.

    Is odd "stop foreign states stealing your identity for assassinations" hasn't been used as a reason for people to get ID Cards, yet...

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nothing will happen

    It's pretty obvious how what happened.

    The UK passport holders travelled to Israel, passed through customs/immigration in the usual way, the passports were scanned, either photographically, or by using the magnetic ink and details recorded and then passed on to Mossad.

    I'll bet that most of these people will claim that their passports were in their posession their entire time, that they were not lost or stolen. In which case, what explanation is there for having the full set of correct credentials to make a fake passport?

    Those details were either: taken from the passports at the point of entry/exit into Israel, or Mossad has agents working with or inside the UK passport agency to ontain the details.

    The latter might be true, but I'd bet on the former.

    If it can be established that this is how the passport credentials were taken from the victims, whilst flying into or out of Israel, then it demonstrates Israel state involment in the killing.

    But then, Israel has a history of doing this anyway.

    And does anyone really think Ed Milliband, of Israeli descent is likely to kick up a big fuss with Israel over it??

    And the americans? Sure they might be a bit unhappy, but heck, there's one hell of a Jewish lobby over there with very large sums of money, so there's no way the Yanks can kick up too much of a fuss.

    So what's going to happen? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Countries around the world will make angry noises about the way Israel have behaved, Israel will repeatedly claim there's no proof they did it, and in a few weeks it will all be forgotten about.

    Israel has many friends that are extremely powerful in many different western countries. Nothing's going to happen and I doubt very much the killers will be caught. They'll almost certainly be protected.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      What about MPs visiting Israel?

      MPs (and US Congressmen and Senators) are regularly invited to Israel on free visits. Which means they've gone through that Israeli clonomatic process too.

      Just think what you could do with an MPs passport! The leverage you could get with a fake visit to brothel, or a flight to somewhere banned, or open an account in their name in Lichtenstein stick some money from Terrorist Abu Babu in it, then confront them about their anti-Israel comments.

      It means their identity documents have been compromised too and the opportunity for Israel to leverage those stolen identities would be limitless.

    2. b 3
      Thumb Up

      nothing will happen, EXACTLY right..

      israel can do what the damn well it wants to do and there's not a DAMN thing anyone can do about it. this is the law. in 1953 arik "the butcher of beirut" led his unit 101 to attack qibya..69 arabs half of them WOMEN AND CHILDREN were slaughtered..at the time, america, britain and france demanded that the perpetrators be brought to justice..in 2000 monkey-boy bu$h called him a "man of peace", AHAHAHAHA!!! a saudi prince said he was a man of pieces, a piece of lebanon, a piece of jordan, a piece of syria..zionists deserve NOONES sympathy and EVRYONES condemnation. history is enough. the TRUTH is enough...all you have to do is research and you will find out what the zionist crusaders are really like. (start with "the ethnic cleansing of palestine" by ilan pappe, great read..)

    3. Anonymous John

      @ Nothing will happen

      They weren't random UK passports. The real owners either had dual nationality, or were long time residents in Israel.

      I'm not convinced that Mossad was involved. Why would it use residents' passports?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        But they must have flown from Israel

        "I'm not convinced that Mossad was involved. Why would it use residents' passports?"

        I hadn't thought of that, of course they MUST have flow from Israel:

        If a UK based Brit flew from Israel to an EU airport, as they arrive from Israel, the Schengen Infomation System would show them as last entering the UK. That would not match up, they'd be caught.

        On the other hand, suppose they flew from the US, Canada, Syria or Iran or whatever. They'd land at the EU airport, and the system would flag them as last travelling to Israel, not Iran or US etc. and suddenly they have to explain the discrepancy, and they'd need the stamps showing exit from Iran and entry into Israel!

        So the flights must have originated from Israel to have the necessary SIS records.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Nothing will happen

      >> The UK passport holders travelled to Israel, passed through customs/immigration in the usual way, the passports were scanned, either photographically, or by using the magnetic ink and details recorded and then passed on to Mossad.

      Or their passport may have been held/photocopied by a hotel or the hotel could have copied down the details for their records. Not sure how common this practice is in Israel, but it is common in many parts of the world.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Schengen Information System

    I think this shows why SIS needs to be open for inspection by the people it has info on.

    If ex pat Eu residents who now live in Israel had their IDs cloned, then they need to check the SIS system to see if there are unexplained journeys through Europe recorded on the SIS system while they were home in Israel.

    Then they get a measure of how many times their identities have been used.

    Likewise Europeans who have only visited Israel. If Israel are cloning passports to create plausible ids that pass the scan at the airport, then perhaps it has used those to move people in Europe.

    Mr Bob Jones might find trips he never took on the system.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Anonymous John

    >> They weren't random UK passports. The real owners either had dual nationality, or were long time residents in Israel.

    So what you are saying is that the Israeli equivalent of the Home Office had all these peoples details and my even have had their original documentation - I don't know what the process is in Israel, but ISTR that when applying for naturalisation in the UK, the Home Office tends to hold onto the passport from your previous citizenship.

    >> I'm not convinced that Mossad was involved. Why would it use residents' passports?

    Why not? Particularly when it has the details so readily to hand.

    1. Anonymous John

      @Why not?

      Why do something that impacts on the lives of some of their citizens? Why not use totally false passports like the one for the imaginary Gail Folliard?

      Mossad would be the obvious suspect, but that doesn't mean they would want to leave evidence pointing at Israel.

      I'm with TimeMaster T here. It just seems too sloppy an operation for Mossad. Fourteen assassins, changing false beards in a public toilet off a lobby covered by CCTV.

      Getting hold of scanned passports isn't hard. Internet scammers often ask for them from their victims. Any intelligence agency could harvest them that way in total anonymity and use them to create convincing fakes.

  13. asdf
    FAIL

    grr Israel

    As a merkin I have to say Israel's actions in the last few years have gotten intolerable and are making us look real bad for being their buddy. That said Palestinians as a group are a very hard group to feel sympathy for considering some of their past action such as they dress their toddlers as suicide bombers, let them watch kids show where a mickey mouse rip off character tells them it is ok to kill Jews, celebrate major attacks on the west carnival style, fought alongside Sadam in Gulf War 1, are basically largely fit the west sterotype of crazy uneducated goat farmers who just do what their mullah tells them. Even countries like Egypt and Jordan look down upon and take advantage of them. Sad all around and makes me so happy not to live in that region of the world due to behavior of both sides.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Seriously, absolutely nothing will happen at all

    A quote from the head of the Foreign Office (properly know as Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs):

    "I am the child of Jewish immigrants and that is a very important part of my identity."

    MI6 is under his control.

    Israel will be required to attack Iran. Nothing will happen, this is the price the UK and the US will pay - especially with the level of influence Israel and supporters of Israel can leverage. If they could just take out Mahmoud Ahmajinedad that might be OK, but they are intent on bombing the country. This will mean even more support for the extreme regime in Iran rather than support the cause for a more moderate leadership.

    In summary, there is no way these assassins will be brought to justice, for various reasons. We, with the support of the CIA, NSA, MI6 and GCHQ have the technology, we can track the travel arrangements and routes taken, we will do nothing... who knows, perhaps Israel could do something heroic and get Osama bin Laden rather than sending several men to kill a middle-aged bloke in a plush hotel.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      David Miliband?

      I think you've fallen for the fake front that the consensus Jewish view is aligned to the war mongering faction in Israel. But this is not true, they oppose them too.

      In that Channel 4 dispatches program, they recorded an incident where Guardian did an article comparing Israel to South African apartheid. Along come some goons from the Israel lobby with a barrister and threaten to use hate speech laws to have the editor arrested. And C4 get a comment from a Rabi who equates Israel to an Apartheid state, the exact same opinion.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1tPulSggyA

      It means that they can't keep the Jewish voice on theme either. He points out that the organization of British Jews they claim to represent he has never heard of. So yet another fake front used to present Mossad views as mainstream Jewish views and hijack the Jewish voice.

      Really, that 'Friends of Israel' group it pretends to 'combat anti-semitism', but it's main aim seems to be to equate criticism of Israel to anti-semitism and thus keep the politicians from being critical of Israel. But their main success was Tony Blair (openly a member) and he has gone.

      I know they've been throwing money at Cameron (tens of millions) but I view that as his weak spot, and given the current situation and the coming election will no doubt be used against him.

  15. ian 22
    Happy

    Solid proof!

    The merkins didn't do it, the city is still standing.

    Likewise the Israelies didn't do it, the hotel is still standing!

    1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      Boffin

      RE Solid proof! - you owe me a new monitor!

      .... and none of the Palestinian factions did it 'cos no-one blew themselves up!

      Just for fun, let's play the conjecture game! I'll throw in the following hypothesis, just for fun, but it is probably correct to say "nothing will happen", as there is little chance of actually pinning anything on Mossad short of a signed confession from one of the assassins. Even if they are caught, all they have to do is clam up and Mossad are in the clear, as if they are apprehended it is likely to be in Europe. No European court would extradite an Israeli to Dubai as there would be little chance of a fair trial, they could even use the possibility of torture angle used so adroitly by "human rights" lawyers keeping AQ sympathisers and jihadis from being extradited. So, on with the other fun options.

      Non-one has mentioned that the peace-loving Mr al-MadBoob is thought to have previously struck deals with not just Iran but also the Chinese, the Libyans and even Russian gangs. The latter are especially capable of mounting such an operation in revenge, maybe they weren't happy at Iran taking their business or maybe Mr al-MadBoob reneged on a deal. After all, the Russian gangs are known to have links to Israeli-Russian immigrants that run gangs in Israel, and it wouldn't be beyond belief for Israeli gangs to suppy stolen identities. And how better to shift suspicion than to get it all blamed on Mossad? It could even be that one of the local Sheikhs or Princes wasn't getting his cut and decided to knock off MadBoob and blame it on Israel. Please note that no specialised coms gear was used, no exotic weaponary (no poison in the ear, just a taser and good old strangulation), which means any number of other parties could have done it and there is nothing to tie it to any previous Mossad efforts. All the Israelis have to do is keep denying whilst smiling smugly

      See? We can play the game all day and come up with a dozen conspiracy theories. Truth is Madboob was not a very nice guy and mixed and did business with some equally nasty people, and probably had more enemies than just the Israelis. After all, two Palestinians have also been implicated. As it is, I think that Mossad had been watching Madboob for a while, saw he was slack on security (he went on without a bodyguard as the plane was fully-booked!), and took their chance to "remove a high-value player from the board". He was definately Mad and made many a Boob - whilst supposedly a top HAMAS member, his picture was freely available on the web = naive; he kept the same travel itinery and used the same five identities = predictable; and travelled without his bodyguards to a country awash with Europeans that gave excellent cover for a hit-team = moronic. Anyone want to theorise why he wanted to do the deal in Dubai rather than much safer Damascus? Could it be because "devout-Islamic-freedom-fighter-martyr" MadBoob was looking forward to a bit of unIslamic R&R in the local fleshpots?

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    biometrics and RFID our saviour? think again

    Reading the arguments it was the mossad whodunnit by taking passport details and creating (bad) fakes from them, it seems to me that a computer-readable document that'll give up a good digital picture and good digital fingerprint scans would yield a much better fake. Especially if you know you can have the checks skip the digital step; you just take the nice picture and put it on a supposedly biometric pass with a broken chip.

    You could "fix" that by having massive databases with pictures and fingerprints and let foreign governments dip into those databases at will, just to check the passport against. Surely that can't be abused, can it? Oh yes, it can. With a bit of fiddling the mossad can now pick identities with pictures that match its agents at will, and fingerprints as deployed here are easy to forge. I've seen it demonstrated several times over the last decade, and it didn't seem to get any harder.

    Meaning what? Two things: One, the entire biometric RFID humdrum is far worse than the paper (well, plastic) based passports without RFID and fingerprints. False sense of security, many more loopholes to slip through for ill-willing miscreants. Two, the only real way to offer countenance to these systemic problems is to come up with "zero knowledge proofs", proving your identity without giving up said identity, because otherwise you're vulnerable to theft and forgery. It's fancy math but that's something the chips can solve. And do not use contactless chips, please.

    One more thing: Noticed how like the pants bomber with *no* passport, here the perps had really bad forgeries, making it basically inexcusable for border guards to let people slip through with them? Curious, curious.

  17. http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/graphics/icons/comment/stop_32.png
    Black Helicopters

    Get Over It...http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/graphics/icons/comment/black_helicopters_32.png

    The Brits' Foreign Office is harumphing! all around everywhere because it's an insult or outrage that some of their passports were used in wiping out a very nasty man. Wiping out bad men (...and, women...equal opportunity..) has been going on since ....forever, and will continue probably for a long time. International Conventions notwithstanding.

    Where is the gratitude for such a beneficent deed, dudes? We're all better off.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Rachel Corrie sends her congratulations

      We don't know or care who you killed, EU interests are not Israels interests.

      We'd like the Israel army officers who bombed the UN elementary school, the army officer who ran over the American girl Rachel Corrie in a bull doser and the office that shelled and bombed a UN observation post killing 6 Europeans, despite 6 hours of pleas to stop the attack on them.

      You see, Israel kills lots of us Europeans, and you expect us to be aligned to Israel?

      This comment brought to you in memory of Rachel Corrie, may the scum who killed her be brought to justice.

      http://www.rachelcorrie.org/

      1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
        Stop

        RE: Rachel Corrie sends her congratulations

        Ah, it's the Patron Saint of Pancakes crowd! How predictable that they'd be upset at the assassination of a man that supplied the rockets used to shoot at Israeli schools.

        "....We'd like the Israel army officers who bombed the UN elementary school...." First off, whom is "we"? And do you mean the school being used as a mortar firing position (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8DbDOt-Ue8)?

        "....An the army officer who ran over the American girl Rachel Corrie in a bull doser...." It was a Russian immigrant driving the bulldozer that accidentally ran over St Pancake after her game of chicken went wrong. The nearest Israeli offier was in the accompanying APC that was closed-down due to Palestinian snipers.

        ".....and the office that shelled and bombed a UN observation post killing 6 Europeans, despite 6 hours of pleas to stop the attack on them...." Ah, you mean the UN position at Khiam in the Lebanon in July 2006, where Hezbollah deliberately sited rocket and mortar teams firing at Israeli civillian targets right next to the UN position, in the hope that the Israelis would return fire. The Israelis had warned the UN that it would return fire in such an event. The Israelis dropped one bomb (so no "six hours" of shelling) in reply to fourteen salvos from the Hezbollah positions. Please note that Hezbollah refused to move even though the UN asked them to - I wonder why! Not to really show up your propaganda but there were only four UNIFIL soldiers killed; one Chinese, one Austrian, one Fin and a Canadian, so your "6 Europeans" blather is just more male bovine manure.

        "....You see, Israel kills lots of us Europeans, and you expect us to be aligned to Israel?...." Really? Do you really want to compare that to the history of Palestinian terrorism, including aircraft hijackings and events like the Achille Lauro? Let alone the number of Eurpoeans killed by Palestinian suicide bombers in Israel, or the continued popular Palestinian support for Al Quaeda actions such as the 9/11 attacks, the Madrid train bombings and the London Underground bombings? The residents of Gaza were dancing in the street and giving out sweets when they saw the news of the 9/11 attacks (see a copy of the CNN video the PA tried to have removed from YouTube here http://www.wikio.com/video/778941). Kinda hard for anyone in the West to sympathise with people that celebrate suicide bombers that kill kids, unless they're some addled propagandist like yourself.

        "....This comment brought to you in memory of Rachel Corrie, may the scum who killed her be brought to justice...." Ah, so you want the ISM to stand trial for the rediculous propaganda they feed the easily-exploited such as the flag-burning Rachel Corrie (a true model of sane and reasoned protest - not!). Because it was not the the fault of the bulldozer driver, who was unsighted by the armour on his cab and having to keep an eye out for Rachel's "friends" who were also busy getting in the way. Nor was it realy the fault of the Palestinians whose rocket attacks on Israeli civillians were the reason the Israelis were looking for arms caches that day. It was the ISM that took a guillable girl, "rasied" by parents that spent more time teaching her to "hate the Man" than to keeping an open mind, and turned her into a strident "anti-Zionist" that was willing to sit in front of a sixty ton armoured dozer in the specious belief that she was somehow "protecting Palestinians". Idiots like you that take her death and somehow try and make it into "an act of martydom" are just too stupid to stand trial for anything, you just need to go back to kindergarten and start your learning from scratch.

        In anticipation of you dribbling the usual pro-Palestinian garbage, you can find a thorough debunking of the Rachel Corrie myth and other Paletsinian falsehoods at a previous Reg post:

        http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2009/03/31/idf_robot_d9_revelations/

  18. Phil 54
    FAIL

    Expert opinions

    I love reading all the comments: "A true pro hit..." etc etc

    Right, sure, okay.

    I somehow doubt that there are any people on El Reg that have experience in "true pro hits".

    No, films, TV, books, and video games DO NOT COUNT.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      ...actually

      in Israels case, we know a lot about their methods in cases where they stray into other states territory ... the operation to snare Eichmann for example.

    2. Anonymous John
      Happy

      You're wrong.

      I have had dealings with a hired killer.

      http://www.scamorama.com/prolite_agnes_hitlad.html

  19. Richard Jukes

    Well..

    I think we can assume that the Israeli's didnt do it because, well, they are getting the blame now. So my money's on MI6. Either way it doesnt matter, all the relevent western/israeli agencies gave the nod to have it carried out.

  20. Winkypop Silver badge
    FAIL

    The Israelis would never.......

    ...ever do anything bad!

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    You remember those lost in the post CD's last year?

    My bet is WE gave the details away on some of those CD/DVD's that intermittently got lost somewhere in the post / private courier systems in the UK of late. I assume they might fetch a good price on the criminal market so would be worth not handing in when delivered to the wrong place.

    As for the Israel bigot comments in here...

    I would like to say your unbelievable, but you Jew haters have been around for a long time (I seem to remember your forefathers paraded swastikas a lot), so your views are well known and not much of a surprise..... however dumb and wrong they are.

    I do enjoy your inane reasoning as to why Israel is the only bad-boy of the pair - The rest of humanity who can do 'reasoning' do understand that there is actually two bad-boys with Palestine being the other in this bunch.

    So we have one claiming theft of land which they originally agreed to let the other team live on (go back 2k years, now re-evaluate this point please - so whose land was / is it originally? Confusing huh - tip: have a butchers at the bible), the other claiming terrorist attacks and general nastiness. Unfortunately both are true, along with a few hundred other nasty claims. Both sides kill, terrorise and mutilate, but one side is a little more organised than the other, leaving the other to rely on surprise and cunning rather than intelligence(that's military rather then reasoning) and military might.

    It might be a surprising revelation, but it is possible to have two bullies in the same fight.

    Supporting either side is plain dumb, and as I grow older and older I realise how dumb many of you really are - how do you manage to get to work each day without knotting your shoelaces together?

    I cant help but shake my head in disbelief at most comments so far.

    1. Ed Blackshaw Silver badge
      FAIL

      Mr Godwin called

      He wants his fail back.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwins_law

  22. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    Stop

    RE: Mr Godwin called

    Hmmm, I think the failure is your failing to see that the Wingate training work was a response to the local threat to British interests. That or a failure to actually think of something original to post. The fact that Amin Al Husseini was the reason behind the British decision is historical fact - denying the link between Palestinian nationalism and the Nazis simply because it's not PC to mention - or simply because you think it's clever to mention Godwin and don't really have any real opinion to post - is simply a fail.

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