Reply With QuoteDubai police do reportedly have retinal scans of the suspects, presumably taken at the airport.Originally Posted by davidbfpo
Dubai CCTV and more?
The Dubai police CCTV compilation is on Abu M:http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawam...eaking-ct.html
There are pictures of a time chart and a few other details.
One clear gap is whether the suspects were forensically aware, so will have not left any DNA or fingerprints behind - notably in the hotel rooms used. Without that evidence any Interpol circulation is flawed, who are the real suspects using the forged passports? Tracing the phone calls made and the money used offer some options and "dead ends".
Stratfor have a You Tube item:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTmRy...layer_embeddedwith an ex-US DoS expert commenting (Hat tip to Free Radicals blogsite).
Last edited by davidbfpo; 02-21-2010 at 09:45 PM. Reason: Stratfor item added
davidbfpo
Dubai police do reportedly have retinal scans of the suspects, presumably taken at the airport.
They mostly come at night. Mostly.
- university webpage: McGill University
- conflict simulations webpage: PaxSims
Photos and an Iowa bank
A fascinating update from Dubai, picked up by the BBC too; photos of the suspects, the use of an Iowa, USA bank's credit cards and charts on the travel pattern: Dubai link http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs....702249835/1133 Note I cannot get the travel charts to download and the BBC link http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/8534303.stm
davidbfpo
Try right-clicking on the link and selecting "Save Link As", which will download the pdf to your hard drive.
Or see a JPEG of it here.
It remains to be seen how many of the newly-identified suspects are actually operatives (and, for that matter, Israeli operatives).
However, if Dubai police are now circulating their photos, and possible biometric, DNA, fingerprints, and other evidence, Mossad sure compromised a lot of personnel for the purpose of one assassination.
They mostly come at night. Mostly.
- university webpage: McGill University
- conflict simulations webpage: PaxSims
If you have time
There is a very long, sometimes confusing and full of interesting points on this murder on:http://www.schneier.com/blog/archive...houh_assa.html
davidbfpo
We don't have any way of knowing if this was simply intended to eliminate one person. There could have been a trove of materials of significant intelligence value on his person (details of arms shipments, banking information for fund transfers, intelligence that would lead to the capture/killing of others like this clown, etc). If the intelligence leads to the death or capture of other high value jerkoffs or to strangling lines of supply to Hamas, then the payoff is far greater than just one KIA.
Here is the news regarding Iran's recent capture of the leader of Jundullah.
Now, imagine the outcry if the following changes were made to that quote...... Rigi, Iran's most wanted fugitive, was seized on Tuesday after Iranian warplanes reportedly forced a flight from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan to land in Iran.
- link (emphasis added, for comparison with the next quote - Schmedlap)
When considering the prudence of (alleged?) Israeli assassinations, I think it is worth pausing for a moment to understand why Israel thinks that it needs to resort to assassination. It's not like they're going to get much help from their neighbors. I don't hear a lot of cries of anger from Dubai or Kyrgyzstan over military aircraft forcing a jet to land in Iran.... al Mabhouh, a senior member of Hamas, was seized on Tuesday after Israeli warplanes reportedly forced a flight from Dubai to Lebanon to land in Israel.
How did all of these passports come into the possession of law enforcement? Are they scans/photocopies made at the airport?
Scanning passports
Jon,
I expect that Dubai uses the standard passport scanning IT so often seen at airports around the world. IIRC Dubai as an international airline hub is required by the US DHS to have such equipment.
Perhaps others here know more. I am aware that Dubai law enforcement is very IT friendly, well illustrated by the released information so far.
davidbfpo
No photos, a commentary
A different analysis:http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-a...astoriginalsL5
I like the point why expose so many operatives?
davidbfpo
I suspect that:
1) Not everyone so far identified is actually Israeli
2) Dubai is IDing (as the article suggests) Israeli operatives who may have passed through for other reasons, either because:
2a) They had already IDed some of these
2b) The hit team left evidence (for example, credit cards all issued by the same small US bank) that allowed Dubai to ID others
2c) There is an element of deterrence/retaliation in Dubai's actions.
They mostly come at night. Mostly.
- university webpage: McGill University
- conflict simulations webpage: PaxSims
The IDing should pose no difficulties to the crafty Dubai police:
Said that, just like many other speakers, almost all Israelis I met had a quite telling accent when speaking English. I don't know if any Mossad agents were among them.The National, an Abu Dhabi newspaper, reported on Monday that Mr. Tamim “claimed the police could identify Israelis by physical features and the way they speak.”
“It is easy for us to identify [Israelis], through their face or when they speak any other language,” the police chief told the newspaper. “We used to respect them when they would come holding European passports; we regarded them as Europeans and never treated them badly. But from now on, anyone we suspect to have a dual citizenship, they will be treated with great suspicion.” *
But good luck with the physical features.
Firn
Surveillance Technology vs. Spycraft
How Dubai unraveled a homicide, frame by frame, by Borzou Daragahi. Los Angeles Times, March 14, 2010.
A Perfectly Framed Assassination, by Robert Baer. The Wall Street Journal, February 27, 2010.A mix of old-fashioned legwork and high-tech razzle-dazzle, scouring hundreds of hours of surveillance videos, helped police home in on suspects in a Hamas man's slaying, blamed on Israel's Mossad.
Stepped-up surveillance technology may be tipping the scales in the cat-and-mouse game between spies and their targets. Robert Baer on the current state of spycraft.
I don't buy the WSJ angle on this. The fact is that all 20 or so supsects got away clean on this. In fact, they were all out of Dubai before the Hamas dude was discovered dead.
Until modern surveillance advances to the point where it can prevent these types of hits, or at least lead to quick captures of suspects, this type of operation remains an option for organizations like the Mossad.
Mossad isn't stupid. They knew that thier team members would be captured on film. They made the conscious decision that it was worth exposing operatives to get this guy. We can argue whether that was a good decision, but trust me it is no suprise to Mossad that these guys pics are being flashed all over the interwebs.
These 20 individuals are now in the process of transforming into Isreali farmers or shopkeepers where they will spend the rest of their lives. Mossad knew they could never be used in an international operation again.
The bottom line on this is that none of us will likely ever know the full story behind this, and even if we did, we would not be able to discuss it in an open forum. They may have decided that it was worth the exposure, or they may have not realized the extent of the surveillance or they may intentionally exposed themselves as a message to their enemies that they will do what they deem necessary to protect the state of Israel. Speculation about it is really kind of pointless since we will never know.
Omar, long before that happens, the Arab nations of the world will have to do something about the perception that these nations are, by and large, populated by people who hate America. As long as that perception exists, Israel will be looked on as our only ally in the region. You can argue about whose fault it is that the perception exists but it does not change the fact of the perception.pacifist, I find nothing surprising in your letter, but I do have a prediction: In a few years, the media equation will start to change AND the costs of blindly supporting Israel will accelerate until even the rich and powerful US will have to think twice before spending billions carrying water for Israel all over the world...then, these apparently "normal" views will change.
Dont take my word for it, just be willing to rethink assumptions and look around...you will see that this situation is not tenable forever. It is in the interest of the Israeli people to make a reasonable peace with the Palestinians. Trying to beat and bludgeon their way out of this will not work.
The advances will come sooner rather than later; it’s a matter of if, not when. Dubai authorities now have the biometric data of 20+ operatives. It is not implausible that in the short-term future (if not now), that they’ll be able to run that data through years of video and pull up prior activity of operatives. That is going to expose more operatives and sources. Imagine if that info is networked with other countries.
They took the risk potential exposure, yes; but they intended to make it look like a natural death. Being filmed does not matter if the authorities have no reason to go back and look at the tapes.
According to the LA Times article they injected him with succinylcholine which would paralyze him and then ultimately mimic a heart attack (delaying the time of death?). Something must have gone wrong and he was suffocated with a pillow. Coroners probably would have written it off as a heart attack, but they spotted puncture marks and an abnormality in the blood.
Again, they took that risk; but hypothetically speaking if they knew that the direct cost was the exposure of 20 operatives, would it still be worth it?
My question is with all of this though why is the finger only being pointed at Israel so far? Sure they are first suspect to come to mind in a hit on a Palestinian militant organization figure like the guy killed in the case we are talking about. However I feel that everyone speculating on this at large aren't considering other nations or entities being behind the hit like Egypt, Fatah, or someone else, as the fellow who was killed was in the arms business and I'm sure like the Israeli's spokesperson who commented on the Dubai hit after it occurred was that "an arms dealer could have many enemies" not just the Israeli's.
I don't know if it was worth it.
The point is that Isreal thought it was worth it.
Britain Expels Israel Diplomat Over Fake Passports
By JOHN F. BURNS
New York Times
Published: March 23, 2010
LONDON — In a rare move by a friendly government, Britain expelled an Israeli diplomat on Tuesday to rebuke the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for what it says was the fraudulent use of a dozen fake British passports in the assassination of a Hamas official in a Dubai hotel earlier this year.
Related
David Miliband, the British foreign secretary, said there were “compelling reasons” suggesting that Israel was behind the misuse of the British passports and called Israel’s actions “intolerable.”
“The fact that this was done by a friendly country only adds insult to injury,” he said in remarks to the House of Commons. “The actions in this case are completely unacceptable and they must stop.”
They mostly come at night. Mostly.
- university webpage: McGill University
- conflict simulations webpage: PaxSims
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