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- Re: [CT] Discussion- Al-Mabhouh blowback
- Date 2010-02-17 23:06:54
- From Anya.Alfano@stratfor.com
- To ct@stratfor.com
- ben.west@stratfor.com
- Others InReplyTo: 4B7C684B.4070805@stratfor.com
- Text
- Any ideas how they got to the shopping center? Maybe a cab driver
- talked? Only need to connect one person to make the dots come together.
- On 2/17/2010 5:06 PM, Ben West wrote:
- right, but there was no inherent connection between the hotel and the
- shopping center that I could see. In order to run TrapWire, you first
- have to have the images to analyze - I'm curious as to who decided to
- look at the shopping center tapes and how they determined that it needed
- to be looked at.
- In general, this just seems too good to be true. Either Dubai police
- department are a bunch of bad-asses or someone got help.
- Fred Burton wrote:
- Forensically, you start on the hotel tapes from the floor of the murder
- and walk the cat back, using TrapWire like software.
- Ben West wrote:
- One thing I was talking to Bayless about just now: I realize that there
- is now face recognition technology out there that would allow the
- Emirates to track these people, but in order to use that, you have to
- have the right set of images to work from in the first place.
- Running analysis at the airport makes sense because the team would have
- scanned their passports there and so had to have gone through the
- airport. Same for the hotels, authorities would have been able to place
- the team members at each hotel based on their passports, which would
- help specify which video to analyze.
- However, I don't understand how they got video of the team going into
- the shopping center. Out of all the random places that the team
- could've met, what prompted the police to check that shopping center?
- Either they ran checks on hundreds of other CCTV tapes or they somehow
- had a tip that the team was meeting at the mall.
- Fred Burton wrote:
- Yes, I think as you break down the tape, the teams had specific roles.
- If host country intelligence and/or another service picked up on them,
- they had enough players in the mix to send any surveillance team down a
- rat hole. I think we are missing something on the dead guy.
- George Friedman wrote:
- 17 people for a hit leaves so many opportunities for failure that its
- breathtaking. Maybe it is the Israelis, but that is way out of the
- box. Like I said, I wonder how many were camo. I bet you some of those
- who resolved back to the Israeli passport holders weren't even aware
- there was a hit on. That much razzle dazzle might mean a small team
- hidden in a big box.
- Fred Burton wrote:
- Wow
- His links to Iran must have been very important.
- Sean Noonan wrote:
- Just to clarify--NYT, sourced from Dubai police, says 17 people now.
- The 11 they identified, with pictures/passport info, and then 6 others.
- Fred Burton wrote:
- When you break down the video tape, efforts were made by the hit team to
- conceal their identities from the video.
- The operation was worked around the video tape I think.
- Between 13-15 men were in play; multiple surveillance teams; hand offs,
- clothing changes; wigs, toupees, cover for action.
- Mossad has made several tactical errors in the past, to include the loss
- of two Palestinian double agents in Europe.
- They had the same passport foul up on the attempt to poison Mishaal in
- Amman, which led to them being caught.
- Frankly, Mossad has a history of bungled operations, but quite a few
- good ones, like Ali Hassan Salameh.
- This was Mossad.
- George Friedman wrote:
- A Mossad team would be extremely aware of placement of security
- cameras. They would not be doing what this woman did. She is to a
- great extent blown now. Major intelligence agencies would be able to do
- biometrics on her pretty effectively. An agent competent enough to
- participate in an assassination of a HVT in an Arab country would be
- highly trained and prized. So from this we can assume that she is
- either a throwaway in the team or that this isn't a major league
- hit--and it was. The Israelis did not need to make this appear to be an
- Israeli hit because everyone would assume that it was Israeli anyway. No
- need for confirmation. For a hit like this the passports used would
- have been much harder to trace, certainly not to living people in
- Israel. The Israelis, like all intelligence organizations, maintain
- libraries of properly aged identities that don't resolve to living
- people.
- Either this was not an Israeli hit or the Israelis sent a second tier
- team. The women looks like she could be Jewish, but she could also be
- middle eastern or American.
- This hit, like some other allegedly Israeli hits in recent years, does
- not follow high professional standards. Trust me on this--the hotel in
- which this woman stayed was mapped out months ago, probably from blue
- prints but certainly remapped for security devices and cameras. She was
- briefed (pounded into her head) where the cameras were and to turn her
- head as she walked by, preferably wearing a dress that hid her figure--a
- blob on the video camera. Instead, she is hamming it up. Looking at
- her, she wasn't the honey trap, so what the hell is going on?
- Sean Noonan wrote:
- As Posey works on the piece from the tactical angle, I wanted to bring
- up the political angle. Now that all kinds of information has come
- out on the assassination of Hamas operative Al-Mabhouh in Dubai on
- Jan. 19, European governments are starting to question the fraudulent
- use of their passports. 6 British, 3 Irish, 1 German and 1 French
- passports were all faked/stolen/borrowed and then used by the
- assassination team. NYT/Dubai says there were another 6 involved, who
- they probably didn't get on camera.
- Israel has in the past borrowed/acquired passports from immigrated or
- dual-citizens of other countries (like Canada for failed Meshaal
- assassination). They also can fake them or steal them. It's becoming
- clear that this was a Mossad op, so if we make that assumption, what's
- the blowback on Israel?
- UK is asking questions:
- http://www.english.rfi.fr/europe/20100217-uk-presses-answers-hamas-killing
- http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5heI4dq286UxVDMXoueq-dwR8tbJw
- http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=37297
- Ireland from a week or so ago:
- http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/israeli-hit-squad-that-killed-hamas-commander-had-irish-passports-14670094.html
- Six of the passport _names_ had dual citizenship with israel:
- http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/16/world/la-fg-dubai-slaying17-2010feb17
- I haven't seen stuff from other countries yet. When this happened to
- the Canadians with Meshaal, they couldn't/didn't do much. Will the
- Brits or anyone else do anything? Obviously Israel doesn't really
- give a shit, but I feel like this is something we should watch.
- --
- Sean Noonan
- ADP- Tactical Intelligence
- Mobile: +1 512-758-5967
- Strategic Forecasting, Inc.
- www.stratfor.com
- --
- George Friedman
- Founder and CEO
- Stratfor
- 700 Lavaca Street
- Suite 900
- Austin, Texas 78701
- Phone 512-744-4319
- Fax 512-744-4334
- --
- George Friedman
- Founder and CEO
- Stratfor
- 700 Lavaca Street
- Suite 900
- Austin, Texas 78701
- Phone 512-744-4319
- Fax 512-744-4334
- --
- Ben West
- Terrorism and Security Analyst
- STRATFOR
- Austin,TX
- Cell: 512-750-9890
- --
- Ben West
- Terrorism and Security Analyst
- STRATFOR
- Austin,TX
- Cell: 512-750-9890
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