Damascus: Hamas has claimed Israeli agents assassinated one of the Palestinian militant group's veteran operatives in a killing allegedly carried out last week in Dubai, UAE, and vowed to retaliate.
The group identified its slain figure as Mahmoud Al Mabhouh, one of the founders of Hamas' military wing. It said he was 50-years old.
Talal Nassar, an official in Hamas' media office in Damascus on January 20, said Al Mabhouh had been "poisoned and electrocuted in his hotel room in Dubai". He did not elaborate.
Izzat Rashaq, a top member of Hamas' exiled leadership in Damascus, said details have not been released to avoid compromising an ongoing investigation, and that Hamas' delayed announcement was linked to an attempt to "reach the Israeli agents who implemented this operation."
The group pledged to "retaliate for this Zionist crime at the appropriate time and place."
Izzat Rashaq, a top member of Hamas' exiled leadership in Damascus, told The Associated Press that details have not been released to avoid compromising an ongoing investigation.
Al Mabhouh lived in Syria and was passing through Dubai when he was killed late January 19 or early January 20, Rashaq said. Originally from the Gaza Strip, Al Mabhouh was married and had four children, he said.
"We in Hamas hold the Zionist enemy responsible for the criminal assassination of our brother, and we pledge to God and to the blood of the martyrs and to our people to continue his path of jihad and martyrdom," read the statement on Hamas' Palestinian Information Center Web site.
Al Mabhouh was to be buried on Friday at the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk, near Damascus, the statement said.
It said Al Mabhouh, who was born in the Gaza Strip, was involved in the kidnapping and killing of two Israeli soldiers in 1989 and that he was still playing a "continuous role in supporting his brothers in the resistance inside the occupied homeland" at the time of his death.
