http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=167394
Photo by: Associated Press
'Hamas operative slain in Dubai was a key arms smuggler'
By ASSOCIATED PRESS AND JPOST.COM STAFF
31/01/2010 17:30
Anonymous officials say commander played key role in moving weapons from Iran
to Gaza; Dubai officials: "Professional criminal gang" with European passports
was likely behind the killing.
A Hamas commander assassinated in Dubai played a central role in smuggling
weapons from Iran to Gaza, officials said Sunday. But they refused to say
whether Israel was responsible for killing the man it had sought for two
decades.
Leaders of the Iranian-backed Hamas have accused Israel of killing Mahmoud
al-Mabhouh in a posh Dubai hotel on January 20 and threatened revenge, though
they have provided little evidence to support their claim. Dubai authorities
have said a "professional criminal gang" with European passports was likely
behind the killing.
The defense officials said Mabhouh was key to moving arms made in Iran or
funded by the Iranian government to Gaza, which is ruled by Hamas. They spoke
on condition of anonymity because they were discussing confidential information.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in the killing.
Mabhouh was wanted by Israel for his role in the 1989 kidnapping and murder of
two Israeli soldiers on leave, Avi Sasportas and Ilan Sa'adon.
There have been conflicting details about how Mabhouh was killed.
Talal Nassar, an official in Hamas' media office in Damascus, said over the
weekend that Mabhouh had been "poisoned and electrocuted in his hotel room in
Dubai." But Mabhouh's brother, Hussein, 49, who lives in the Jebaliya refugee
camp in Gaza, said his brother "died by electric shock and suffocation with a
piece of cloth."
Another of Mabhouh's brothers accused Israel of killing him.
"Who had an interest in rubbing him out? Israel," Fayek al-Mabhouh told
Israel's Army Radio from Gaza on Sunday. "He wasn't connected to any gang. He
wasn't a criminal."
Abu Obeida, Hamas' military spokesman in Gaza, said Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was
passing through Dubai en route to another country when he was killed, but did
not say which country.
Iran has acknowledged bankrolling Hamas but has never admitted to arming the
Islamist group, which wrested control of Gaza from Fatah in June 2007. Israel
is convinced Teheran has become a main pipeline for arms to Gaza ever since the
Hamas takeover.
Stopping the flow of weapons to Hamas rocket squads has been a top priority for
Israel. The air force pounded smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border
during its three-week war in Gaza last year and continues to target them
sporadically. The tunnels have been built to skirt an Israeli and Egyptian
blockade of the tiny Palestinian territory.
Hussein al-Mabhouh claimed his brother had survived two Israeli assassination
attempts, including an attempt six months ago to poison him in Beirut.
Hamas posted pictures of Mabhouh's body on its Web site Sunday. The photos
showed the body wrapped in a white burial shroud and a green Hamas flag and
headband. Mabhouh appeared to have been beaten, with bruises and welts on his
nose and cheeks.
Israel has been linked to previous attacks on Hamas figures abroad, and other
efforts to halt suspected arms shipments to Gaza. In most cases it has refused
to comment on the allegations against it.
Last month, two Hamas men were killed in a mysterious blast in Beirut. Hamas
said Israel was a suspect but did not openly accuse it of the killings.
The leader of Hamas' Damascus-based leadership, Khaled Mashaal, survived an
Israeli poisoning attempt in Amman, Jordan, in 1997.
Last year, Sudan - a close ally of Iran and Hamas - accused Israel of attacking
a convoy in a remote mountainous desert region of northeastern Sudan. Media
reports said the attacks targeted convoys smuggling weapons en route to Gaza.
Israel is also suspected of assassinating a senior military commander from the
Iranian-backed Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbullah in Damascus in 2008, and was
accused by Iran earlier this month of slaying an Iranian nuclear physicist.
National Infrastructures Minister Uzi Landau dismissed Hamas allegations that
he brought the assassins with him when he traveled to Dubai earlier this month
to attend an international conference on renewable energy.
"What we are seeing here is the wild Middle Eastern imagination coupled with
Palestinian anger that the Israeli flag is formally flying at a conference at a
hall in Abu Dhabi," Landau told Israel Radio.
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