EU anti-terror chiefs: Mabhouh furor may jeopardize our operations
While set to condemn the death of Hamas commander', smuggler and kidnapper Mahmoud al Mabhouh in Dubai on Jan. 19 , the European Union's foreign ministers confined themselves Monday, Feb. 22 to blasting the suspects' use of forged British, Irish, French and German passports. They also avoided mentioning Israel despite pressure form Irish foreign minister Michael Martin. This restraint was prompted by a warning from important anti-terror intelligence service heads, including the British MI6 and the German BND, that continuing to fan the international furor over the Mabhouh killing could expose unpublished liquidations of key terrorists – not necessarily by the Mossad. This exposure would seriously jeopardize the work of Western undercover agencies combating terror.
At the same time, certain European elements and Iran are urging Dubai and the United Arab Emirates to go all the way and bring Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Mossad director Meir Dagan to trial before the international court at The Hague. They would be accused of ordering the Mabhouh liquidation, thereby committing an act of terror, namely a war crime, on foreign soil.
debkafile's intelligence sources report that Tehran is behind the emirates' change of tone after their officials previously avoided directly implicating Israel. Monday too, they "discovered" another six or seven suspects in addition to the eleven previously cited.
According to our sources, Iran is intent on keeping the Mabhouh affair alive by pumping out a stream of sensational "discoveries" and innuendo in order to tar Israel as a practitioner of terrorism. Teheran's Iranian campaign of vilification will climax Wednesday, Feb. 24, when defense minister Gen. Ahmadi Vahidi visits Qatar to rebuke its rulers on their handling of the assassination as overly tame.
The Iranian minister will ask how the emirates can expect security when they give Israeli agents free rein and permit the Americans to post interceptor missiles on their soil. Putting their trust in foreigners will not make them safe, Vahidi will argue, and advise the emirs instead to take up Iran's offer of mutual defense pacts based entirely on regional forces.
Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman responded to the EU decision after meeting British foreign secretary David Miliband and the Irish foreign minister: "There is no proof Israel is involved in this affair, and if somebody had presented any proof, aside from press stories, we would have reacted. But since there are no concrete elements, there is no need to react."
debkafile's sources note that careful inspection of the CCTV clip the Dubai police released to GNTV Monday tracks a group of unidentified characters moving around in a suspicious manner, interacting, checking in and out of airport and hotels, switching disguises, shadowing Mabhouh and taking a room on the same floor as his at the Al-Bustan Rotana luxury hotel.
Nothing on the tape links the suspects to any country or organization; neither does it show any group member moving from surveillance to killing mode.