Is there something fishy about this?

[Blackpool]

Gordon Brown has called for a full investigation into how fraudulent British passports were allegedly used by the killers of a Hamas commander in Dubai.



Police there have named 11 Europeans, including six Britons and three Irish nationals, suspected of killing Mahmoud al Mabhouh in a luxury hotel last month.

But the Foreign Office has said the UK passports involved were "fraudulent" - and officials in Dublin said they had "issued no passports" in the names of three people using Irish identities.

Details such as the names, numbers and dates of birth on the suspect passports matched the originals. However, the photographs and signatures differed.

The Prime Minister said: "We are looking at this at this very moment."

"We have got to carry out a full investigation into this. The British passport is an important document that has got to be held with care," he told London's LBC Radio.

"The evidence has got to be assembled about what has actually happened and how it happened and why it happened.

"And it is necessary for us to accumulate that evidence before we can make statements."

Hamas has pointed the finger at Israel, blaming the country's secret service Mossad for carrying out the hit.

And Dubai's police chief Lieutenant General Dhahi Khalfan Tamim said it was possible that "leaders of certain countries gave orders to their intelligence agents to kill" the Hamas militant.

The hit squad allegedly flew into Dubai on separate planes and booked into different hotels wearing wigs and fake beards to disguise their appearances.

At least two of the alleged gang watched the Hamas commander check-in to the hotel and booked a nearby room, it was claimed.

Around five hours after setting foot in the emirate, al Mabhouh was ambushed and killed. It is not known if he opened the door to his alleged killers himself.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Wor...itants_Killers

[Trumble]

"Fishy" in what way? I'm quite sure Mossad, not to mention every other halfway competent intelligence agency in the world, has sufficient passport information to allow them to forge them for pretty much any country they like.

Brown has really no choice to launch an enquiry of some sort (the only alternative being doing nothing) as there is the chance that, maybe, this information was sold to the Israelis by a corrupt official, but there are so many other possibilities (the passports could just could have been sneakily photocopied in any airport or hotel the people involved happened to have passed through) the chances of it getting anywhere seem extremely remote.

No doubt suitable protests will be made to the Israelis as well but as as yet nobody has proved Mossad had anything to do with this, or is ever likely to, that will be a complete waste of time as well.

[sister herb]

New Details On Al Madbouh Assassination Could Lead To Crisis With Israel
Wednesday February 17, 2010 11:22 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

The ongoing investigation conducted by the authorities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on the assassination of Hamas leader, Mahmoud Al Madbouh, revealed that Israeli agents used European passports, while at least three used Irish Passports.

The Central Issues Israeli website reported on Wednesday morning that seven Israelis living in Israel and carrying international passports are accusing the Israeli security of impersonating them.

The website added that by using European passports, such British, Irish, German and French, the Israeli Mossad placed the state in a tough position the these countries.

The Central Issues said that “It seems Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is always accompanied by failure”, as the Mossad previously tried to assassinate Hamas’s political Bureau head, Khalid Mashal, in 1997, while he was in Jordan, and now although Al Madbouh is dead, the Mossad could not cover its trails.

The Website further reported that an Israeli man living in Beit Shemesh in Jerusalem told the Israeli media that he was surprised to see his picture among those who are believed to be involved in the assassination.

At least five Israelis also spoke out later on and said that their pictures were published as suspects in the assassination despite the fact that they were in Israel when the assassination was carried out.

They accused the Israeli Mossad of faking passports carrying their real names.

Meanwhile, the British authorities confirmed that the identities of the British nationals mentioned in the report belong to real citizens who have nothing to do it the issue.

The Authorities in Dubai stated that eleven holders of European passports are involved in the assassination of Al Madbouh, and even published their pictures. Six of them carry British passports, three with Irish passports, a German, and a French person.

The Irish authorities said that Evan Dennings, Gail Folliard, and Kevin Daveron, who were mentioned in the report as Irish nationals have no records as legitimate passport holders.

Israeli daily, Haaretz, reported that Stephen Daniel Hodes, an Israeli-British national whose name and picture were published as one of the assassins, said that he was shocked by the report and added that he haven’t left Israel for more than two years, and was never in Dubai.

Another Israeli who emigrated from the UK, Melvyn Adam Mildiner, stated that he is angry and terrified to see his name listed as a suspect.

A third Israeli, Michael Bodenheimer, who emigrated from the United States more than 20 years ago, said that he was astonished to see his name in the report and added that he is a student at a kollel, a Yeshiva for married men, Haaretz said.

His name and picture were published but the report referred to him s a German citizen.

http://www.imemc.org/index.php?obj_id=53&story_id=57981

[Blackpool]

Why was there no public announcement from our government? The first time they had spoken about it was when Brown was asked on a radio call in. He had no intention of letting the public know.

I personally don't care for Hamas, I'm just looking for opinions.

[sister herb]

And I am looking for that those murderers will get punishment about they crime. But if it was Mossad it might be quite impossible to catch them never.

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Britons shocked by Dubai assassination claims

Gordon Brown promises a full investigation into the use of fake British passports by the assassins of a Hamas chief in Dubai. Alex Thomson reports.

British authorities are investigating claims of how six British nationals apparently had their passports cloned by assassins, alleged to be from a Mossad squad, on a reported mission to kill a top Hamas leader.

Police in Dubai named 11 suspects - all carrying European credentials - who were allegedly part of a plot to kill military commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, which was orchestrated from a command centre in Austria.

The leader from the Palestinian group Hamas was found dead in a luxury Dubai hotel room last month amid conflicting reports over how he was killed.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office confirmed that the identities of the six accused are real British passport holders living in Israel.

"We believe the passports were used fraudulently and have begun our own investigation," a spokesman said.

One of the British suspects denied any involvement in the killing, calling himself the victim of an identity theft.

"I am obviously angry, upset and scared," Melvyn Adam Mildiner, a British immigrant to Israel, said.

Mildiner of Beit Shemesh, near Jerusalem, said he had nothing to do with the assassination and had never been to Dubai.

"I don't know how this happened or who chose my name or why, but hopefully we'll find out soon," said Mildiner, a technical writer after Israeli newspapers splashed names and photos of the suspects distributed in Dubai.

"I have my passport. It is in my house, along with the passports of everybody else in my family, and there's no Dubai stamps in it because I've never been to Dubai," Mildiner said.

Three other men on Dubai's list offered similar accounts to Israeli television stations and websites. Most shared a profile of having immigrated to Israel from English-speaking countries and had dual national identities.

"I don't know what to say. It's a mistaken or stolen identity, it's not me, that's for sure," Michael Lawrence Barney said in a televised interview.

Stephen Hodes, another recent immigrant to the Jewish state, said: "I am in total shock. I don't know how they reached me. The photographs are not of me, of course...I'm mortified."

Prime Minister Gordon Brown today promised full investigation. "We have got to carry out a full investigation into this. The British passport is an important document that has got to be held with care," he told London's LBC Radio.

"The evidence has got to be assembled about what has actually happened and how it happened and why it happened and it is necessary for us to accumulate that evidence before we can make statements."

The Palestinian militant group Hamas has blamed Israel for the assassination that took place in a luxury hotel in the Gulf emirate, and Dubai police have said they could not rule out Israeli involvement.

Israel's foreign minister has said that the use of identities of foreign-born Israelis did not prove the Mossad spy agency assassinated him.

"There is no reason to think that it was the Israeli Mossad, and not some other intelligence service or country up to some mischief," Avigdor Lieberman told Army Radio.

Amir Oren, from Haaretz newspaper in Tel Aviv, has told Channel 4 News: If we go with foreign minister Lieberman's insistence that Israel remain ambiguous about it - presumably to get some deterrants out of the assumption that Israel did it - we can assume without any confirmation that Israel may indeed have been involved in this matter.

"If we proceed from this assumption, then, apparently, it was intended to be a silent operation, so to speak, meant to portray the late Mr M as having suffered a heart attack and then collapsed in his room behind closed doors, and then found dead of natural causes.

"In that case there would have been no investigation and no tracing back of any assassination squad.

"Only when suspicion arose in Dubai, only then were the identities and passports and photos depicted in a way that is now seen in Israel as a blunder.

He added: "There has been a remarkable shift in public opinion over the last 24 hours.

"At first when the Dubai police showed their remarkable Oceans Eleven sort of film regarding the hit, the Israeli public applauded the professionalism displayed by the presumably Israeli squad, but then when it turned out that these identities were, if not stolen, at least borrowed and then returned to the innocent people involved, then questions emerged.

"As we speak now, while the Israelis believe that it is right for Israel to go after Hamas terrorists such as M, nevertheless it wasn't necessarily cost effective."

Dubai police said the killers were disguised in wigs, hats, sunglasses and tennis outfits and used an electronic device to break into Mabhou's hotel room and lie in wait for their target.

Police released CCTV footage showing some of the suspects going in and out of the al Bustan Rotana hotel, where the victim was staying.

Dubai's police chief, Dahi Khalfan Tamim told reporters that the suspects arrived in Dubai at different times, checked into separate hotels and tailed al-Mabhouh from the moment of his arrival.

They paid for all expenses in cash and used cell phone cards to avoid being traced while calling a "command centre" in Austria police said.

Hit squads dispatched by Israel's Mossad spy agency have used foreign passports in the past, notably in 1997 when agents entered Jordan on Canadian passports and bungled an attempt to kill Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal with poison.

In the most recent publicised case linking Mossad to foreign identity papers, two suspected Israeli agents were jailed in New Zealand in 2005 for obtaining that country's passports illegally.

In 1987, Britain protested to Israel about what London called the misuse by Israeli authorities of forged British passports and said it received assurances steps had been taken to prevent future occurrences.

http://www.channel4.com/news/article...claims/3546437

Some good video reports as well

Not a long shot to guess that Mossads involved, they have a track record in this type of killing

The British will blow a lot of hot air over this (domestic concerns) but they are not really that bothered by this, after all Israel and Britain share common interests and privately British probably approve of this kind of operation so their relationship will not be damaged in any significant way.

[Supreme]

I think Mossad wanted people to know it was them who comitted this terrible crime, hence why it is so easy to attribute this murder to them. Most likely the are using it as a warning to anyone who crosses their path. KGB, anyone?

Anyway, I'm shocked at the carelessness of Israel in implicating British citizens. The Foreign Office is summoning the Israeli ambassador to explain tomorrow. He had better have a good excuse.

[Dagless]

If he was so high up in Hamas why didn't he have some guards with him? I found the way he was killed to be very sad. I guess it was the fact that he was on holiday rather than doing something military related.

[sister herb]

Those terrible crimes what this murdered Hamas leader had committed were acts in the war (about them which I have an information) - like killing two soldiers and taking part of legal resistance against illegal occupation. If country, what Mossad is serving, would behave as civiliazed, democratic state (what it all the time claims to be), they wouldn´t make kind of crimes against international laws - murdering people without trial. Targeted assassinations like this one are calling also as extrajudicial executions.

If some people don´t care about murdering people without trial they can of course be worry about other matters like how many times attacks of Mossad has risked life of people around they real target and how many times Mossad has murdered wrong persons "by mistakes". Letting kind of state terrorists act freely, even without strong condemn they crimes, anyone might be at risk to become they next "mistake".

Other thing is also to think do kind of crimes help any kind of peace between Israel and Palestine or do they just make people from both sides more radical?

[titus]

The only thing fishy I see is that it was so easy to track the passports back to Israel. You don't picture Mossad being that careless.

It sounds like it must be one of two possibilities:

1) As Supreme said, Israel did it on purpose in order to let people know who did it without openly claiming it.

2) Someone is setting up Israel as the fall guy because they know that there are millions of people that won't even try to question the fact that Israel did it.

[sister herb]

The only thing fishy I see is that it was so easy to track the passports back to Israel. You don't picture Mossad being that careless.

It wouldn´t be even the first time when Mossad makes so big mistakes and be so careless that it unveils itself by own mistakes. They are not so well known in the west because usually western media doesn´t report them. In this case it is different because some European countries got involved in this matter.

Anyways, I am not interesting speculate what sounds "fishy" and what doesn´t. Facts are facts, personal opinions "what if" are personal opinions.

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Dubai's police chief says he is almost certain Israel was involved in last month's assassination of a senior Hamas official.

Dahi Khalfan Tamim says, if proven, an arrest warrant should be issued for the man in-charge of Mossad, the Israeli spy agency.

Robert Fisk is the Middle East correspondent for the British newspaper The Independent.

He says if Israel is behind the assassination, then Tel Aviv could find itself in a diplomatic crisis with some of its European allies.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/mi...320606581.html

Watch the video - Very interesting comments from Robert Fisk

[sister herb]

Hmmm... if those governments of Britain, Ireland and France don´t really believe that Israel was behind of this assasination, why all of them have summoned Israeli ambassadors to question them about the use of forged European passports? Why they ask it just from Israel?

[Froggy]

Britain will only oppose Israel when it comes to its own citizens.

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Dubai to screen Israeli arrivals

Dubai will use stricter screening measures before admitting Israeli dual citizenship holders into the country, its police chief said. Israeli citizens are banned from travelling to the United Arab Emirates, which includes Dubai.

But dual nationals can use alternative passports to enter the country. Many Israelis hold dual nationality. The move follows the assassination of a Hamas commander, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, in Dubai on 20 January.

The Israeli secret service has been implicated in the killing, though Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement. Dubai's police chief Lt Gen Dahi Khaflan Tamim said that in future, the UAE would "deny entry to anyone suspected of having Israeli citizenship".

"Earlier, Israeli dual citizens could easily enter the country even if officials recognised them as Israelis from their accents and traits. But from now on they will be carefully scrutinised, regardless of what passport they hold," he said. "We will not allow those who hold Israeli passports into the UAE no matter what other passport they have," he added.

Speaking at a security conference on Monday Lt Gen Tamim said, "Israel must not carry out its assassinations on our land. When it has a conflict with another country, Israel should deal with it on their land or the other country's but not here on our land." "It is disgraceful how the killers abused European and other passports and UAE soil to assassinate", he added.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/8544788.stm