Dubai hit squad underestimated police: expert

Ashley Hall, ABC

A former top level US intelligence official says the assassination in Dubai of a Hamas operative has all the hallmarks of the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad.

He believes the Israeli operatives badly bungled the job because they underestimated the competency of the Dubai police.

Three Australians with dual citizenship have been named as suspects in the investigation because copies of their passports have been linked to the killing. All say they were victims of identity theft.

The Israeli Government says there is absolutely no evidence that it sanctioned the use of Australian passports by the alleged assassins.

And Israel insists that no other government has accused it of involvement in last month's assassination of the Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai.

But there has been no shortage of independent commentators ready to make that link.

Retired army colonel Patrick Lang spent eight years as the head of intelligence for the Middle East and South Asia for the US Defence Department, and for that time was the chief liaison with Israeli military intelligence.

And Mr Lang says the use of fake documents is standard practice for intelligence operatives.

"I certainly think it was the Mossad. Israelis, in particular this Israeli government, are obsessed with Hamas and its leadership," he said.

"They think that if they can kill off enough Hamas leadership then they will be able to make some sort of peace ... with the PLO leaders who are now the provisional government of Palestine, really."

Bungled job

Mr Lang believes the intelligence operatives badly bungled the assassination.

"I think this is a case in which a project often-time will be over-thought and over-engineered," he said.

"The more people look at it and the more they throw resources at a job they want to do, the team gets bigger and bigger and bigger and the thing gets more and more complicated.

"The more complicated it is, the more likely it is to fail or get terribly messed up in some way, as this did."

The Israeli government says there is no evidence linking Israel to the crime but Mr Lang says denial is standard practice.

"Any intelligence service that is anyway worthy of its name, when faced with a mess like this, looks you squarely in the eye and says, 'not us'," he said.

"It smiles and invites you to lunch next week and walks away. That's what they do. So what they say has nothing to do with anything."

Fake passports

Since the killing, Dubai police have released information suggesting the assassins were travelling on fraudulent passports from countries including Britain, France, Ireland, Germany and Australia.

That accusation provoked a strong response from Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, who yesterday summoned Israel's ambassador, Yuval Rotem, to a meeting to discuss the affair.

Mr Smith told Mr Rotem that if Australian passports were misused by Israel, this would not be regarded as "the act of a friend".

A former Mossad officer has alleged the Israeli spy agency has its own "passport factory" to create or doctor passports for use in intelligence operations.

And Mr Lang says using forged travel documents is usual procedure for intelligence agencies.

"Any intelligence service in the world which wishes to operate on a global basis is going to have the ability to reproduce travel documents," he said.

"You should accept the idea that it is something which is going to happen."

But he says any country forging passports would be careful about which nationalities it fakes.

"I haven't heard of them using any American passports in this operation so far. It would be interesting to see if in fact any turn up. I bet there won't be any," he said.

'No evidence'

But the president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Robert Goot, says Mr Lang's analysis holds no water and there is "no evidence" the hit was a Mossad operation.

"An investigation, quite properly, has been announced by the Foreign Minister, to be conducted by the Australian Federal Police and ASIO," he said.

"And once there are some hard facts and evidence established by that investigation, then that would be the time to comment.

"I'm sure that the [Australian Jewish] community shares the Australian Government's deep concern at the possible abuse of Australian passports by any country."

Mr Smith's office says the investigation will be contingent on the Dubai police investigation into the assassination itself.

And that investigation is likely to take weeks rather than days.