A dead end in Dubai

We previously wrote about the assassination of Hamas murderer, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, in Dubai.

Well, there seems to have been a break in the case after all this time. The identity of one of his alleged killers has been uncovered by the Dubai police. Unfortunately for Dubai's gendarmes, the man has been dead since 1973.

The Jerusalem Post, citing a story in the Wall Street Journal, writes,

“In cooperation with Interpol, British and French police, Dubai police were on
the trail of one of the alleged assassins of senior Hamas terrorist Mahmoud
al-Mabhouh. The man reportedly entered Dubai under a British passport with the
name "Christopher Lockwood." However, they discovered that the man's "real" name was Yehuda Lustig and that he had changed it in 1994 to the more Anglicized
"Christopher Lockwood," according to the Journal's report.”

“According to the Defense Ministry, the real Lustig died in a battle along the Suez Canal during the war, as yet another lead pursued by Dubai police chief Lt.-Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim leads to a dead end.”

Sounds like something out of the French Revolution segment of History of the World, Part I. Mel Brooks fans will know what I mean.

Read the full report.

Assassination in Dubai

I've just returned from two weeks in Israel where one of the lead stories has been the assassination of Hamas's arms buyer and smuggler Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai.

While the world condemns Israel for the assassination, something Israeli officials neither admit nor deny, others are analyzing Israel's or, for that matter, any other country's right to eliminate its enemies in a time of war.

The Financial Times, FT.com, provides one view written by Andrew Roberts in "Israel is no more rogue than America."

Commenting on articles by Henry Siegman and David Gardner condemning the killing, Roberts says,

"Both commentators are completely wrong. All that the Dubai operation will do is remind the world that the security services of states at war – and Israel’s struggle with Hamas, Fatah and Hizbollah certainly constitutes that – occasionally employ targeted assassination as one of the weapons in their armoury, and that this in no way weakens their legitimacy."

Roberts does not believe that the condemnation of Israel is valid. He examines what other countries have done in times of war to reinforce his point.

All in all, Roberts makes a good case for the proposition that countries at war sometimes have to resort to actions that are not pleasant but are necessary nonetheless. Typically, reader comments on the article have run both ways.

Read the full article by going to the link above.