maandag 1 februari 2010

Hamas zweert wraak voor dood kopstuk in Dubai


Allerlei verschillende manieren waarop Israel Hamas leider Mahmoud al-Mabhouh zou hebben gedood doen de ronde: vergiftiging, electrische schokken, wurging. Dat maakt de geloofwaardigheid van de beschuldigingen er niet groter op. Ook zouden de Israeli's die met minister Uzi Landau mee waren gekomen naar Dubai continu zijn bewaakt, dus het is onwaarschijnlijk dat een Mossad agent van dit bezoek gebruik heeft gemaakt om het land binnen te komen. Volgens Dubai is al-Mabhouh vermoord door mensen die op een Europees paspoort reisden. Dat sluit de Mossad natuurlijk niet uit.
 
Volgens Hamas heeft Israel de regels overtreden door haar leiders nu ook buiten de Palestijnse gebieden te vermoorden. De beste man was echter verantwoordelijk voor de wapensmokkel van Iran naar de Gazastrook. Hamas heeft al in alle toonaarden wraak gezworen, en wacht het onderzoek van Dubai niet af.
 
RP
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The Jerusalem Post
Hamas vows to avenge death of operative
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH AND HERB KEINON
31/01/2010 01:31
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=167333


National Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau responded Sunday to the Hamas allegation that his entourage was responsible for the assassination of a senior Hamas member in Dubai 10 days ago. "My entourage went to an international conference. What we are seeing is the wild eastern imagination going hand in hand with Palestinian anger about an Israeli flag flying over Abu Dhabi."

Mahmoud Zahar, a senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, accused Israeli agents accompanying Landau to the United Arab Emirates two weeks ago of assassinating top operative, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

Interviewed on Al-Jazeera, Zahar suggested that the agents might have entered the country with forged documents.

He accused Israel of "moving the battlefield abroad."

A senior source in the Prime Minister's Office said Israel had no comment on the matter and at the opening of the weekly cabinet meeting Sunday, ministers refused to comment on the incident in Abu Dhabi, but in response to questions, did compliment Mossad chief Meir Dagan and experessed appreciation for the work of the organization.

Hamas said over the weekend that it will send a "security delegation" to Dubai to participate in the investigations into the recent killing there of its  and hinted that it plans to strike at Israeli targets abroad in retaliation.

The delegation would seek to "learn the lessons from the assassination," Hamas spokesman Ayman Taha said. He said Israel would "pay a heavy price for its despicable crime."

Mabhouh, one of the founders of Hamas's military wing, Izzadin Kassam, was found dead in a hotel room on January 20, a day after entering Dubai. The Dubai government said in a statement that initial investigations showed the crime was likely committed by a "professional criminal gang" and that the suspects left the country before the body was discovered.

However, it was pointed out that Landau's delegation, which consisted of fewer than 10 people, was guarded by an eight-man UAE security team, from the time it landed on a Friday morning in Abu Dhabi – some 120 km. away from Dubai – until the time it flew out of the UAE.

The Landau delegation hardly left the hotel, only taking one brief site-seeing excursion, and was accompanied throughout by the UAE security detail.

According to one government source, it was clear that Hamas – which was plainly unhappy that an Israeli delegation was allowed to attend the International Renewable Energy Agency conference – was now using allegations of a Mossad involvement in Mabhouh's death as a way to embarrass the UAE.

Talal Nassar, an official in Hamas's media office in Damascus said, Mabhouh had been "poisoned and electrocuted in his hotel room in Dubai."

"We know they stunned him with an electric shocker and then strangled him," said Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzuk, who did not mention poisoning.

Mabhouh's brother, interviewed in the Gaza Strip's Jabalya refugee camp, where the two grew up, also said that medical reports supplied to family members in Damascus indicated that he had been subjected to electric shocks and strangulation.

The Hamas statement said Mabhouh was involved in the kidnappings and murders of two IDF soldiers, Avi Sasportas and Ilan Sa'adon, in 1989, and that he was still playing a "continuous role in supporting his brothers in the resistance inside the occupied homeland" at the time of his death.

Meanwhile, Egyptian authorities on Friday banned members of Mabhouh's family from leaving the Gaza Strip to participate in his funeral in Damascus. Mabhouh was buried on Friday.

Zahar said that by assassinating Mabhouh, Israel was seeking to turn the international arena into a zone of confrontation with Hamas.

"Israel alone will bear the consequences of its actions," he said.

"In the past Israel experienced with the PLO what it means to take the conflict to the international arena. Israel knows that Hamas is no less capable of reaching Israeli targets at any time and any place."

The killing of Mabhouh in Dubai showed that Israel "does not respect the sovereignty of any Arab country," Zahar said.

He urged the Arab countries to reconsider their ties with Israel in light of its alleged role in the assassination of the senior Hamas operative.

Zahar said Israel had "broken the rules of the game" by carrying out the attack abroad, according to Israel Radio.

"If it wishes to transfer the conflict to the international arena, there will be repercussions," Zahar was quoted by the radio station as saying.

Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal also vowed to avenge Mabhouh's death.

Addressing mourners during the slain man's funeral in Damascus, Mashaal said: "We will avenge the blood of this giant. If today you [Israelis] are happy about his death, your joy will be short-lived, because we will avenge his blessed blood. If you think that we will abandon the option of resistance, you are under an illusion. Our resistance won't be weakened by settlements, occupation, killings, walls or starvation."

A spokesman added that Hamas was considering different courses of retaliatory action, among them an attack on Israeli targets abroad. He stressed that the organization was fully capable of carrying out such attacks, but had so far not chosen to do so.

"We in Hamas hold the Zionist enemy responsible for the criminal assassination of our brother, and we pledge to God and to the blood of the martyrs and to our people to continue his path of jihad and martyrdom," read the statement on Hamas's Palestinian Information Center Web site. The group pledged to "retaliate for this Zionist crime at the appropriate time and place."

Sa'adon's mother told Army Radio on Friday morning she was happy to hear that a Hamas operative believed to be involved in her son's murder was assassinated.

"I am happy that [his death] has been avenged, but sad that 20 years passed before this happened," Sa'adon's mother told the radio station.

Although Mabhouh's body was found in Dubai on January 20, information about his death was only made public after the corpse was returned to Damascus, where Mabhouh had lived since leaving the Gaza Strip in 1989.

A statement issued by Dubai's official media office said Mabhouh entered the country on the afternoon of January 19, and was found dead within a day, suggesting that the killers had tracked his movements.

The statement from the government of Dubai made no mention of Israel. It said that the killers are thought to have been traveling on European passports and had already left the UAE when the body was found. The statement said that Interpol had been contacted for help finding the suspects, and expressed confidence that arrests would be made.

The Washington Post, Jerusalem Post staff and AP contributed to this report.

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