Hamas: Israel assassinated operative in Dubai

(WARNING): Article contains propaganda!

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By MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press Writer

JERUSALEM – Hamas claimed on Friday that Israeli agents assassinated one of the Palestinian militant group's veteran operatives in a killing allegedly carried out last week in the Gulf city of Dubai and vowed to retaliate.

The group blamed Israel for the slaying of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh but offered no evidence of foul play or Israeli involvement in the man's death. Israel's government had no immediate comment.

The Hamas operative was killed on Jan. 20, according to an announcement on a Hamas Web site. The statement gave no details about his death or any explanation for the delay in making it public.

"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' Palestinian Information Center Web site. The group pledged to "retaliate for this Zionist crime at the appropriate time and place."

Al-Mabhouh will be buried Friday at the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk, near Damascus, the statement said.

The Hamas statement identified Al-Mabhouh as one of the founders of Hamas' military organization, which has been responsible for hundreds of deadly attacks and suicide bombings targeting Israelis since the 1980s. It said he was involved in the kidnapping and killing of two Israeli soldiers 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.

He was born in the Gaza Strip.

In Dubai, officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

Hamas rules the Gaza strip, but has leaders and operatives based in Damascus, Syria and elsewhere. The group's members abroad have been targeted in the past. Last month, two Hamas men were killed in a mysterious late-night blast in Beirut. Hamas said at the time that Israel was an obvious suspect but stopped short of openly accusing Israel of the killings.

The leader of the group's Damascus-based politburo, Khaled Mashaal, survived an Israeli assassination attempt in Amman, Jordan, in 1997.