DUBAI: Another suspect identified in alleged Mossad killing of Hamas commander

In the latest twist to the Persian Gulf spy thriller, Dubai police have identified yet another suspect, a British national, in the assassination of Hamas military commander Mahmoud Mabhouh, the British consulate confirmed to the Palestinian Ma'an Agency on Monday.

Unlike the other 32 suspects, including two alleged members of the Palestinian Authority, the latest alleged agent to enter the United Arab Emirates actually did so with his real passport. Though Interpol and Dubai authorities maintain they have the biographical information of the suspect, all that is known publicly is that the 62-year-old Brit’s father was a Jew who fled Palestine after the onset of World War II and immigrated to the United Kingdom.

Even Mabhouh himself had entered Dubai illegally, on one of his five forged passports, using the name Abdul Raaouf Mohamed, reported Al Arabiya. In fact, not only Israeli, but Egyptian and Jordanian governments had warrants out for Mabhouh’s arrest, Haaretz explained.Known as "the Fox," Mabhouh garnered the respect of his fellow Hamas operatives for his sharp intuition and cunning, claimed Agence France Presse. But on Jan. 19, Mabhouh fell one step behind; he was found dead in his luxury Bustan Rotana hotel room after being injected with muscle relaxant and suffocated to death with a pillow.

Mabhouh's brother, Hussein, 49, told Agence France Presse that Mahmoud had traveled to Dubai for business, to purchase weapons for Hamas as he had recently become a key figure in arms procurement as well as a broker of the deepening partnership with the Al Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps.
In 1989, Israeli authorities failed on two separate occasions to arrest Mabhouh for the abduction and murder of Israeli soldiers Avi Sassportas and Ilan Sa'adon. They did, however, demolish Mabhouh’s home in response.

In 2009, Mossad's second assassination attempt fizzled as Mabhouh recovered from a poisoning after 30 hours of unconsciousness.

Just weeks after his death, a video aired on Al Jazeera in which Mabhouh confesses to participating in the murders of Sasportas and Sa'adon."I pulled out my [38mm] revolver and pointed it at his [Saadon's] head to shoot him, but [my partner] Abu Suhaib was faster than me. He shot him with his own pistol," Mabhouh elaborated, according to Agence France Presse. He celebrated his success by standing on one of the corpses.

-- Becky Lee Katz in Beirut

Photos: Father of Mahmoud Mabhouh holding his photo. (Credit: Associated Press) Some of the suspects in the assassination. (Credit: Agence France Presse)