The plot is thickening. The assassination of Mahmoud Al Mabhouh is the stuff of John le Carre novels; just as convoluted and just as sinister.
The fact that the Chief of Dubai Police, Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan Tamim, is almost certain that the culprit is the Mossad raises a few eyebrows. Mossad's agents had carried out a string of similar hits in the past. What troubles me more is the possible involvement of Palestinians, who are believed to have offered logistical support.
In pictures: Details of the prime suspects
Two former policemen, with alleged links to the former Palestinian National Security Council Chief, Mohammad Dahlan, are said to be in the custody of the Dubai authorities after having been extradited from Jordan. At the same time, a Hamas security official is being interrogated in Damascus in connection with the killing. But even if they are ultimately implicated, they will have little to reveal as Mossad cells are stringently compartmentalised.
Fatah says Israeli agents have infiltrated Hamas while Hamas has accused Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of colluding with Israel. If, indeed, any Palestinian helped to commit this crime — whether they were motivated by revenge, ideology or filthy lucre — they have shamed their compatriots and the entire Arab nation.
Just as curious is the report in last Friday's Daily Mail that Israel had warned the British Foreign Office in advance about possible complications arising from its intelligence agents' fraudulent use of British passports. The British government has written off this accusation as "nonsense".
The Foreign Office has summoned Israel's Ambassador to London, Ron Prosser, to shed light on the incident while Prime Minister Gordon Brown has ordered an investigation into the misuse of British passports. We will never know whether the British government is expressing faux outrage now that the operation has been exposed.
Acceptance
The Israeli government remains tight-lipped but, interestingly, Israeli newspapers are now accepting the Mossad's orchestration of the murder almost as a given.
The mood in the Israeli press has shifted from ‘why does Israel always get the blame?' to calls for the reckless Mossad chief Meir Dagan to be sacked for risking Israel's relations with European allies and embarrassing six Israeli dual passport holders.
A few still insist that the operation was too amateurish to have been carried out by Mossad. In particular, the way some exited a hotel toilet, having donned disguises, seemingly oblivious to CC-TV cameras all over the place.
They also claim the Mossad wouldn't have used passports of dual national Israelis. However, those arguing the other side of the coin say this was done as a deliberate message to Israel's foes that they would be hunted down wherever they were in the world.
It's a smoke-and-mirrors scenario that lends itself to endless speculation.
My own theory is this: the passports of six British-Israelis were cloned because the Mossad could be sure that none of the legitimate holders would turn up in Dubai when immigration would have been alerted. Obviously, in the event they had used the passports of ordinary British residents, the risk of that would have been very small, though it has happened before. According to Robert Fisk "an American entered" the UAE "in June 2006 on a British passport issued in the name of a UK citizen who was already in prison in the Emirates."
Secondly, it's coincidental that all the dual-nationals happened not to be travelling outside Israel at the time of the hit, which gives rise to the possibility that they might have acquiesced to their passports being cloned. That isn't to suggest they were privy to the operation. Israel has thousands of civilian volunteers assisting its intelligence services in a fairly minor capacity as well as cooperative non-Israeli Jews all over the world known as sayanim. Certainly, the British government should have asked some hard questions before it issues the six with new passports.
Following the Mossad's botched 1997 attempt to kill Hamas leader Khalid Mesha'al in Jordan when its operatives travelled on Canadian passports, investigative journalists discovered that Canadian immigrants to Israel are routinely asked to turn over their passports to the Mossad. This was later admitted by a former Canadian ambassador to Israel, Norman Spector.
The only party that emerges squeaky clean out of this mess is Dubai. Its intelligence services and police have won admiration for investigating the case so thoroughly in record time and for their determination to see the perpetrators brought to justice. Those of us who look upon this incident with disgust can only hope that those European countries who have offered cooperation are sincere so that, for once, Israel's assassins can be brought to book.
In the meantime, there must be hundreds if not thousands out there who know the suspects. They must have their favourite newsagents, greengrocers and coffee shops. Perhaps Dubai should consider setting up a website displaying photographs of suspects with various hairstyles, hair colours, with and without glasses, beards and moustaches etc along with the offer of a hefty reward for anyone who can help identify them.
Linda S. Heard is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She can be contacted at lheard@gulfnews.com. Some of the comments may be considered for publication.
