Israel's relations strained by Dubai killing

Many suspect the murder of a Hamas leader in Dubai to be the work of Mossad. The Israel service may have overplayed its hand in the killing.

The Israeli government is mired in silence, but experts say the murder of Hamas leader Mahmoud Al Mabhouh on January 20 bears the fingerprints of the Israeli secret service Mossad. “The murder has its signature written all over it,” said Yossi Melman, Israel’s best known Mossad expert.

Earlier this week, the Dubai police force released pictures of the 11 suspects in the case: ten men and one woman. All made use of fake identities.

Mossad, Melman said, has a long history of working with stolen identities. “The service assumes it is better to adopt an existing identity than to invent a new one, because it reduces the chances of being found out,” Melman explained. “If security services do a background check, it soon becomes obvious that the person you claim to be really exists. This can reduce suspicion.”

A case of mistaken identity

One of the seven Israelis, all European binationals who were unpleasantly surprised this week by a very peculiar case of mistaken identity, is Paul Keeley.

The ‘Paul Keeley’ who paid a dubious visit to Dubai was a full-figured man with a large beard and thick glasses, the pictures released by the Dubai authorities show.

The real Paul Keeley is a UK-born, smooth shaven, wiry Israeli, who found out he was wanted by Dubai police by reading his breakfast paper. The 43-year-old handyman read he was wanted for the murder of the Hamas leader. Keeley claims he has nothing to do with the killing and is not a secret agent. He told Israeli media he hasn’t left the country in two years. “I am worried that people will come after me wanting to hurt me,” he said.

Several of the victims of the identity theft told the press about their fear of becoming targets for retribution. Hamas has already vowed revenge for the murder. Others think they will never be able to fly again, because their names now appear on every most-wanted list. And either way, their privacy has been grossly violated.

A call for Mossad chief's resignation

The case has set off a fiery debate in Israel. Opposition party Kadima has demanded a parliamentary inquiry into the murder. Yisrael Hasson, a parliamentarian who was himself a secret agent for years, has accused the service of often taking advantage of citizens to further its own ends. Journalist Amir Oren called for the resignation of Mossad chief Meir Dagan in a commentary in the liberal daily Haaretz.

The murder itself seems to have been carried out in an amateurish manner. Mabhouh often travelled to Dubai without any personal security. The police said Mabhouh was shadowed for a long time before he was – most probably – strangled in his room. The 11 suspects’ preparations were registered at length by security cameras at the hotel where the Hamas leader stayed. Images released by the Dubai police show disguised men and a single woman wearing fake moustaches, glasses and tennis gear, checking into the hotel and coming and going thereafter.

Haaretz ran a sarcastic cartoon on its front page this Thursday depicting prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu telling Mossad chief Dagan “But the [secret agents] are all wearing the same glasses,” to which Dagan replies “Yes. They were on sale.”

Nonetheless, Mossad expert Melman feels the murder was a “rather flawlessly executed operation”. “One should keep in mind that Mossad’s primary duty is intelligence gathering, for which they are far better equipped that assassinations, which they carry out only once or twice a year these days,” he added

Mabhouh’s murder has often been compared to a failed assassination attempt by Mossad in 1997. Mossad agents tried to kill Hamas leader Khaled Mashal in Jordan by injecting poison into his ear. Mashal survived, but a crisis between Israel and Jordan followed. The Israelis had to release another Hamas leader, sheik Ahmed Yassin, to appease the enraged Jordanians.

An old habit

Melman said that, though it is not its core business, Mossad seems, in recent years, to have picked up its old habit of assassinating abroad. Israel never formally acknowledges responsibility for any killings, but Israeli experts agree a string of recent foreign liquidations was most probably Mossad’s doing.

In 2008, Hezbollah leader, Imad Mughniyah, was killed in an explosion near the Syrian capital of Damascus. The city was also the scene of an attack on a bus full of Iranians late last year. This attack, which killed three people, has remained something of an enigma, but many suspect Mossad was behind it. As they believe the secret service is to blame for the recent bombing of an Iranian scientist in Tehran.

The international community is up in arms about Mossad’s methods, as it was in 1997. The United Kingdom and Ireland have demanded an explanation from the Israeli ambassador over the use of counterfeit British and Irish passports. The series of assassinations has also strained relations with the Arab world. For this reason, Israeli daily Maariv called the murder an “operational success, but a strategic blunder”.