Posted on 02/18/2010 4:13:27 PM PST by nickcarraway
Despite regional hostility and suspicion, for over four decades agents from Israel?s intelligence community − special units and the Mossad − have had no trouble penetrating Arab capitals. There have been dozens of assassination missions, from the 1979 killing of Ali Hassan Salameh in Beirut to Imad Mughniyeh's assassination in 2008 (which Israel never claimed responsibility for) and other successful intelligence operations attributed to Israel.
There have also been a few failures, such as the botched hit on Hamas politburo head Khaled Meshal in Amman in 1997.
The most important lesson to be learned from the assassination in Dubai is that it was possibly one of the last operations of its kind. The use of sophisticated security cameras and the introduction of biometric measures of identification are changing the rules of the game in the world of spooks.
These advances are aimed at improving the security services ability to make life difficult for terrorists and criminals. However, paradoxically, it is the espionage agencies that will probably be affected more, as they will have trouble operating in the new technological reality. This will cause problems especially for the Mossad, which, according to the operations attributed to it, may well be the only organization in the world today in which assassination of terrorists is part of its DNA.
Over the past decade the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has adopted Israeli methods of targeted killings; as used by the Shin Bet security service and the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza; in their own actions in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Iraq. However, whereas the Americans mainly employ unmanned aerial attack vehicles, the Israeli intelligence community supplements these means by also using the old classical tactics of deploying agents, who put themselves at personal risk of exposure and arrest.
(Excerpt) Read more at haaretz.com ...
Maybe it was suicide?
If the pillow suffocation was meant to make a plausible scenario of natural death, it failed utterly.
Since the participants were photographed, it is unlikely that they can be used again and also is likely that many countries will not allow them to enter.
Now, the Mossad is not dumb..they knew this going in.
I thought he was electrocuted?
How close were the photos? Can they really be recognized that well?
Yeah right, I’m sure Mossad had no idea there were video cameras around.
I saw/read he was suffocated with a pillow over the head, and presumably a few Israeli ex-olympic wrestlers leaning on him.
It’s hard to arrange a “natural death” any more. It’s easy to sniper or Predator a kinetic end, but they are hard to pass off as natural.
It is amazing how many people, bad guys included, die in accidents around the world.
No doubt.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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Maybe Mossad screwed up, maybe the three palestinians arrested could offer a clue, but if Osama knew backing the west down was this easy, he'd have killed a high ranking Arab years ago. Of couse this is Ha'aertz, a publication to the left of the NYT and WP who doesn't believe in killing enemies. Speculation, but I'll posit that after a few weeks of hair on fire, this will be forgotten.
If the glove (pillow) doesn't fit, you can't convict.
Do a search, Dubai put out a 30 minute tape a few days ago. Pictures at the hotel, in the hall outside the room, in the lobby, at the airport, in a shopping center, a regular Travel Channel piece. These Mossad guys are either incompetant, or something else is going on here. I admit I haven’t a clue what, who or why. It may simply be stupid Mossad guys, which is why the three arrests thus far are palestinian security force members, two Fatah, one Hamas.
Has it been proven that is was Mossad?
I’ll post a link to the whole thing when I find it, most of what’s there is a 3 minute job, but Dubai released 30
It sure wasn’t the deballed CIA or the Little Sisters of the Poor.
I’m sure they didn’t look anything like themselves.
The Dubai investigators haven’t identified any Mossad agents from the reams of video footage, so I don’t think we’re looking at “stupid Mossad agents”. We’re either looking at something other than Mossad agents, or we’re looking at very smart Mossad agents whose mugs in the video footage don’t look squat like their real selves.
Apparently both are in Fatah, and one of them has confessed to his part in the murder.
Then it was reported tonight that a member of HAMAS, enemy of Fatah, was arrested in Syria in connection with this assassination.
So, 3 Palestinians thus far are the only individuals arrested.
And I am sure that this dead guy had a lot of Palestinian enemies. Plus, his bodyguards weren’t with him. Could be an inside job, or a Palestinian opposition group.
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