A tale of two assassinations
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Larry Derfner - (Opinion) February 24, 2010 - 1:00am

There are times when it's a good idea to assassinate a Hamas leader, even in a foreign country, and times when it's a bad idea. The killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai last month (which everyone presumes to have been the Mossad's work) was a bad idea. By contrast, the Mossad's attempt in September 1997 to kill Khaled Mashaal in Amman was a good idea that went bad in the execution, so to speak, as I wrote in a column titled "Hit 'em back" two weeks afterward.

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Dubai and Hamas and the “Real Killer”
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat
by Tariq Alhomayed - (Opinion) February 22, 2010 - 1:00am

The assassination of Mahmoud al Mabhouh in Dubai has entered a new, dramatic chapter. After the Dubai Police Chief accused Israel’s Mossad of being responsible for the elimination of al Mabhouh, and following the disclosure of important details taken from images and passports used in the assassination, the story has taken on international dimensions involving Britain, France and Germany.

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Israel's arrogance has boomeranged
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Arab News
by Linda Heard - (Opinion) February 22, 2010 - 1:00am

A British columnist writing in The Telegraph referred to it as “the Keystone Spooks”, while ordinary Israelis who, initially, were gleefully patting one another on the back aren’t grinning any longer.

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A bumbling Mossad hand suspected in Dubai assassination
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Borzou Daragahi - February 19, 2010 - 1:00am

To its planners, the assassination of senior Hamas figure Mahmoud Mabhouh must have first seemed like the perfect spy operation. They slipped into Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, on fraudulent travel papers. They quietly killed the militant leader long wanted by Israel, reportedly smothering him with a pillow, and discreetly left the country.

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Cartoonists in Israel take aim at Mossad
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
February 19, 2010 - 1:00am

Political cartoonists working for Israeli newspapers this week turned their attention away from Rafiq Husseini, the Palestinian Authority official who disgraced by a sex tape. The new target of the cartoonists is a subject that is usually off-limits: Mossad. The shift in focus took place as suspicion mounted that the spy agency was involved in the assassination in January of Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in Dubai.

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Profile: Victim's brother tells of 'shadowy and secretive life'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
by Said Ghazali, Donald MacIntyre - February 19, 2010 - 1:00am

Unsurprisingly, the family of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh are convinced that his death was the work of Israel. His older brother, Hussein, said the assassinated Hamas commander had owned a sewing factory in Damascus, but lived a "shadowy and secretive life" in Syria. "Each time he called us he talked from a different phone." Hussein – a Hamas activist and head of a Gaza charity – said this was the fourth attempt on his brother's life. "Regardless of the evidence, it is in the interests of the Mossad to assassinate him," he told The Independent.

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Britain's explanation is riddled with inconsistencies. It's time to come clean
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
by Robert Fisk - (Opinion) February 18, 2010 - 1:00am

Collusion. That's what it's all about. The United Arab Emirates suspect – only suspect, mark you – that Europe's "security collaboration" with Israel has crossed a line into illegality, where British passports (and those of other other EU nations) can now be used to send Israeli agents into the Gulf to kill Israel's enemies. At 3.49pm yesterday afternoon (Beirut time, 1.49pm in London), my Lebanese phone rang. It was a source – impeccable, I know him, he spoke with the authority I know he has in Abu Dhabi – to say that "the British passports are real.

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Fatehgate - between fact and fiction
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times
by Daoud Kuttab - (Opinion) February 18, 2010 - 1:00am

Corruption has always been the Achilles heel of the Palestinian leadership. At the height of PLO’s popularity in the 1970s and 1980s, the relationship between revolution and money was the movement’s major weakness. Well-respected Palestinian artist Kamal Boulatta best reflected this dichotomy in his painting mixing the words thawra (revolution) and tharwa (riches).

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Palestinian role Dubai assassination? Hamas blames Mossad
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Erin Cunningham - February 18, 2010 - 1:00am

Hamas, who lost senior leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in January after he was assassinated in an elaborate cloak-and-dagger operation in Dubai, has joined the government of the tiny emirate in saying it's convinced the likely perpetrators were members of the Mossad, Israel's intelligence and security agency.

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In Dubai attack, signs of Mossad shadow war
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Matti Friedman - February 18, 2010 - 1:00am

The death of a Hamas operative in Dubai at the hands of a squad of burly hit men conjures up images of the string of killings that followed the murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics and a bungled attempt to poison a Hamas leader in Jordan 13 years ago. Israel's Mossad spy agency — the prime suspect in the death of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh last month in Dubai — has known both triumph and embarrassment in decades of covert warfare, and the latest episode would appear to include elements of each.

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