McClatchy's/ here".......Israeli officials were surprised by the intensity of Dubai's probe.
"There are an increasing number of fingers pointed at Israel and the Mossad, but we have faced these kinds of accusations before and always maintained that we do not comment," said an Israeli official with military intelligence. He added that Israeli defense officials have been asked not to comment on the incident to "avoid inflaming tempers further."
"There has been a lot of surprise among people here at the scope and speed of the Dubai investigation. This is probably not something anybody expected," he said. Dubai had been seen as "critically weak," he said, and unlikely to carry out the type of investigation that's being led by Tamim, who's called frequent news conferences to detail evidence that's been uncovered. The official asked not to be identified because he wasn't authorized to comment on the record.
Within days of the killing in January, Dubai police began to point the finger at Mossad. They now say the assassins used electronic cards to enter Mabhouh's hotel room and suffocated him with a pillow. The suspects left through a number of countries, with most ending up in Israel, though Tamim has said several may have gone to the United States.
The number of suspected assassins Tamim has named stands at 26, nearly half of whom share names with Israelis who hold dual citizenship. Australia and Britain have sent investigators to Israel to question individuals over the use of fraudulent passports.
Like most Arab countries, the United Arab Emirates doesn't have diplomatic relations with Israel. Dubai has taken a more lenient stance with Israeli visitors, however, even allowing Israeli tennis player Shahar Peer to play in a tournament there. Tamim said there now was regret over Peer's participation, especially since several of the suspects appear to have carried tennis rackets with them as part of their "cover" while in Dubai.
Israelis largely have ignored the diplomatic row surrounding the assassination, and Mossad officials reported that the agency has never been more popular in the country.
While some Israeli businessmen said they'd suffer short-term losses due to decreased trading with Dubai, a report in the Israeli daily newspaper Yediot Ahronot said their dealings would return to "business as usual" within weeks.
The Jerusalem Post declared, "Irrespective of who carried out the January 19 assassination of senior Hamas terrorist Mahmoud al Mabhouh in Dubai, the operation was meticulously planned and successfully executed, and despite a surprisingly impressive investigation by Dubai police, the hit cannot be considered a botched job."
Hamas has confirmed that Mabhouh played a key role in supplying weapons to Palestinian militants. Mabhouh's second in command, Mohammed Nassar, told Hamas' Al Aqsa radio that Mabhouh "never stopped thinking about how to fight the occupation by supplying weapons to the Palestinian fighters."
Israel has said Mabhouh had several passports, which he often used to travel to neighboring Arab countries, where he met with militants from the Lebanese group Hezbollah and Iranian officials."
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