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Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Mabhouh finger-pointing update

Everyone is blaming everyone else for the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai - but almost everyone blames the one country that there is no evidence for [yet].

The latest: Dubai police extradited two Palestinian Arabs from Jordan and arrested them in connection with the murder, and one of them is a PA official. So Hamas is accusing the PA of working with the Israelis in planning the hit.

The PA, meanwhile, says that Hamas members themselves must have been involved, and that Israeli intelligence has penetrated the highest leadership positions of Hamas (something that Hamas itself has been investigating.)

Dubai police had meanwhile given out photos of eleven people they say were involved, plus a very neat videotape showing parts of the operation (same link.) The eleven people had passports from England, Ireland, France and Germany.

For their part, the British are denying that any of their people were involved, saying it was the Mossad.

The only report I've seen that doubts the Mossad was involved was this same one from the Daily Telegraph which says "video footage and a series of passport photographs released by the Dubai police last night suggested a much more convoluted and bizarre operation than is normally associated with Mossad, which has a reputation for ruthless professionalism." I saw at least one report that said that all eleven people were staying in the same room across the hall from Mabhouh, which seems odd unless it was a huge suite.