back to article 15 new suspects named in Hamas Dubai assassination

Dubai police have named 15 more suspects - all reckoned to have entered the UAE using counterfeit Western passports - wanted over the murder of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in the Gulf state last month. The new suspects - alleged to have laid the groundwork for the main 11 person hit squad by providing logistical support …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    Taser used in this murder (?)

    The manufacturer of Taser-brand death-by-electrocution devices assures us that all taser deployments are traceable. They're supposed to disperse a cloud of coded Anti-Felon ID Tags around the crime scene. So here is a very good test of that supposedly useful anti-taser-abuse system.

    Well?

    1. timisis.com

      Well

      I'll be damned if Mossad uses a weapon they did not hack. As for the amount of people, it is basically to "isolate" the crime scene, making sure all contacts, bodyguards and even random hotel staff are far enough

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    mossad

    australian additionally, how thoughtful of israel indeed

    When you have friends like Israel, why do you need enemies.

    1. Intractable Potsherd
      Stop

      Friends??

      Israel isn't friends with anyone - it only looks after itself.

    2. Ian Michael Gumby
      Black Helicopters

      You're silly. Jumping to conclusions...

      Why do you think it was Israel that did this?

      Do you not think that maybe, just maybe Iran did this as a way to further isolate Israel?

      Hmmm, Now that would be interesting. Steal identities of Israelis who hold dual citizenship, and use a US bank to pay for the travel?

      If you look at the nations used, Iran's spy network could have done this, sacrificing a pawn that had outlived his usefulness. You know its plausible for Iran to get rid of a liability and throw the blame on Israel. Two birds with one stone.

      But hey! What do I know? I might just write this in to a best selling fiction book. ;-)

      -G

      1. lglethal Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        @ Ian - finally someone else providing an alternative thoery

        Its about time someone else started thinking about alternatives to the whole "Mossad are guilty but who needs proof" thing.

        I continue to be mystified that people could believe an organisation like Mossad consistently rated as being in the same league as the CIA, MI5, Jordanian intelligence, etc. could make so many mistakes. The passports for me are a dead giveaway - i cannot imagine any government sponsored intelligence network (ok western government sponsored intelligence network) not knowing that an Irish passport has letters and numbers in its passport number, that for UK, Aus, German (and probably Irish and French) passports that you cant sit at an angle, wear glasses, pull stupid faces, etc. The whole thing looks distinctly amateurish to me.

        The iranian idea is very interesting, i hadnt thought of that theory... I'll buy your book Ian! =P

        My personal fav theory (as i wrote on a different el reg article) is the "Hamas taking out a traitor by making it look like a clumsy Israeli assassination" theory. Its certainly gotten more weight now that its been reported that Mahmoud's son was actually a Mossad double agent for 4 years...

  3. lglethal Silver badge
    Joke

    30 to take down 1?

    It really requires 30 people to take down a single terrorist? Who was this guy? Superman?

  4. Daniel 1

    I don't really know which is the more alarming

    A) The fact that it (apparently) takes 26 people, to electrocute, and then suffocate, a man to death

    or

    B) How ordinary they all look

    http://www.thenational.ae/assets/pdf/AD53408224.PDF

    Sure, some of them look a bit... well... cranky (is that the smile that "Elvinger" uses as he attaches the electrodes, I wonder... and "Mildner" definitely looks like he get a big kick out of something or other ... while "Graham" looks like he was only there because he got turned down for a job as a Shoe-bomber.) None of them look especially like they just stepped out of some XBox game, though, do they?

    I suppose this is what real life (or, at least, real death) looks like: you get executed by a crack team of geography teachers. (Not Maths teachers, obviously: Maths teachers are hard)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      B) How ordinary they all look

      It has been perfectly described as the banality of evil.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Watch it unravel, e.g. US citizen

    I read that they're matching passports of people who emigrated to Israel against travel details/ID cards/bank details to see how many times this has been done and for what purpose.

    So there will be a steady stream of disclosures over the coming months. It should be fun to watch. As the names come out, no doubt we'll find all kinds of 'activity' has been done with the passports of people who have emigrated to Israel.

    Security clearance? Betcha, Commerical spying? Yep certainly. Bribes? Ka-chink! Sabotage? Well if you'd murder someone with a fake British Passport, then it wouldn't be such a big thing to sabotage a competitor.

    And as a matter of urgency the records held on citizens who have visited Israel and fear they have a clone should be made available. They will want to take a look to see if 'they' have been up to things 'they' didn't do.

    Note I told you they've likely done it with US citizens IDs, and lo and behold:

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article7035509.ece

    "The real Michael Bodenheimer, who was born in the United States and now heads a religious school in Tel Aviv, told the magazine that he had never applied for a German passport."

    Told you. Go on kid yourself.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    26 and rising

    Am I alone in thinking this sounds less like a secret mission and more like an invasion?

    1. Anonymous John

      No, you aren't.

      Mossad could probably have won the Afghan war with that number of people.

      1. Intractable Potsherd
        Thumb Down

        Please ...

        ... don't give them ideas. The rest of us will end up paying for whatever Israel does.

  7. jonathan rowe
    Grenade

    What is the world coming to?

    What about the hamas guy, he was on a false passport - I guess that's OK since dubai is the premier centre for islamic terror finance. And are you telling me that MI6 have never used false passports?

    I mean, what is the world coming to when you can't travel around on a false passport, doing some casual arms dealing without getting bounced off?

  8. Naughtyhorse
    Grenade

    rogue state anyone??

    so, a bunch of murduring shitheads, waging a campaign of terror against all and sundry, attacks agains the heart of civilisation...

    you'll be telling me they have a secret neuclear programme next.....

    ya know that achmed I'm-a-dinner-jacket dude dosent sound like quite such a loon after all.

  9. Throatwobbler Mangrove
    Paris Hilton

    jesus

    " credit cards acquired through the theft of EU citizen's identities,"

    Fuxake. The FCO can't issue press releases that are correctly punctuated? I notice the original Council of Ministers release was correct (http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/EN/foraff/112964.pdf ) but someone at the FCO helpfully "fixed" it and El Reg failed to deploy a [sic] tag

  10. RichardB

    what a lot of hassle

    I thought the currently approved assassination technique was a laser guided missile. No one blinks an eyelid.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/hamas-leader-assassinated-in-gaza-by-israeli-missile-strike-560368.html

    Let alone what we get up to in a 'War zone' that isn't in fact a war?

  11. disgruntled yank

    Western passports

    I knew that Mossad was tough, but to relocate Australia? Why does anybody even bother to mess with them?

  12. Marcus Aurelius
    WTF?

    26 people?

    Mission: Impossible always managed to pull similar things off with only about 5 or 6.

    If 26 were involved, I'd at least expect a full scale invasion

    1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      Stop

      Do the maths, then do the logic....

      Two Dubai police investigators are studiously examining the CCTV footage from every hotel in Dubai:

      "Hey, Abdul, there's another white guy in the film! Quick, send his picture to Interpol, the Zionist swine!"

      "You're right, Achmed, he must be one of the b*stards!"

      "So, how many is that?"

      "Only, 26, and we still have another forty hotels to cover."

      "Damn, these Zionist scum are everywhere!"

      At this rate, there won't be a single white person that visited Dubai last month that didn't get fingered for being a Mossad hitter! Please, 26 people? This shows one of two things - either there are a lot of people travelling regularly to Dubai (and presumably other areas) on fake passports (not really that surprising, considering it appears to be a haven for money-launderers), or that the UAE border control system is really full of holes! I'm sure the next "news" from Dubai is going to be that Mossad are also suspected of hacking into the UAE police systems to alter the passport records.

      Going on what I've read on other assassinations, at most I'd expect this to be a team of four to eight people, maybe twelve at most, but 26? Even the CIA isn't that overmanned! The Dubai investigation is starting to look farcial.

  13. ian 22

    Israel & the Ayatollahs

    Sounds like a Goth group.

    Could this have been an al-Quds Force operation? Should send quite a message to Mossad if true. It would mean Iran has penetrated the Israeli govrnment. But why would Iran assasinate one of its own agents?

    Clearly not a Palestinian operation- no suicide bombers involved.

  14. MarkS
    Thumb Up

    ID Cards....

    ...would've stopped those sneaky Israelis from stealing British IDs.

    Good on them although it's strange for a brit to witness a government protecting its people and actively seeking to wipe out those that mean them harm.

    1. Patrick Ernst
      Flame

      Good on them?

      "Good on them although it's strange for a brit to witness a government protecting its people and actively seeking to wipe out those that mean them harm."

      There must be limits to the activity. Perhaps you think that Israel assasinating (murder) a Palestinian is good. Or the US assasinating an Afghani or Pakistani? How about if a Palestinian/Afghani/Pakistani assasinated a US or Israeli or Brit person they considered antagonistic to their protection of their people? Fair's fair.

      Political assasination is a hated and illegal tool and self-defeating. Please don't give me the "they started it first" argument. Doesn't work in school and doesn't work in life.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    Least we forget

    What about that Iranian Scientist? That assassination also had all of the hallmarks of Mossad, and Haaretz newspaper had an article with the head of the Mossad practically admitting to it, but I guess that wasn't on a British Passport :)

    Watch out for people with glasses, it's always the ones you least suspect.

  16. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge
    Black Helicopters

    Identity theft or 'borrowed'

    Two obvious explanations - not sure which is more worrying as a Brit that lives abroad and travels a lot.

    The ids of the Brits living in Isreal were borrowed. So a couple of inteligence agents turn up and ask if for the good of the country, god and whatever the Jewish equivalent of apple pie is - can we borrow your passport for the war on terror. After all your average Daily Mail reader would do this for MI5.

    This means that the UK gov is going to start getting difficult about people that live abroad and hold dual nationality, perhaps limiting their British passports.

    Or on holiday the airport swipes your biometric passport, copies all your details, takes a photo of you and your fingerprints - and files it away until they need to use an agent that is close enough to your description. What happens when Hamas gets a copy of your passport from a stopover in Dubai and uses it to send a hit team to London or Washington? Are MI5 going to be so understanding that it was identity theft?

  17. Etrien Dautre
    Coffee/keyboard

    Do/Is 26 Like A Separated Warhead?

    Starting right into gallop, I can't find another explaination except that all these tourists were working in a counter-nuclear op. But there are some questions, of course (-:

    Who has more intact operative information on Mabhouh than Mossad? Who was the most reliable operator of the execution, then? And who bought the service? Was HAMAS blackmailing anybody in the European financial circles?

    Imagine how tight the hatch is batten if the victims' passports were selectively chosen out as free from any suspiction in terrorism, + knowing that their holders will not fly anywhere from Jan 18 to 20 and therefore as the guaranteed once to deliver executors to the terminal and drag their asses out after.

    But maybe a poor lonely HAMAS commander has unexpectedly decided to break the service... The reason to leave, in this case, must have been known for enough long already...

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