On January 20th, Palestinian Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was found dead in a hotel room in Dubai hotel.  On February 20th, Reuters reported that the police chief in Dubai suspected that al-Mabhouh had been murdered by Israel’s Mossad.  Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was a Hamas commander. 

On February 27th, the UK Times reported that Mossad was seeing an increase in applications from Israelis interested in joining the agency. 

The article in the UK Times points out:

“Governments across the world are lambasting Israel for what it considers a sloppy job done by agents who were caught on CCTV and may have left behind DNA. In Israel, the operation is being touted as a job well done. Israelis are discussing the killing with a wink, a nod, and pride in the agency, offically known as the Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations.”

OK. Israel is being blamed for a very sloppy killing (very unlike Mossad), the world condemns it, and Israelis try to join Mossad.  But that’s not where the story ends.

Scott Johnson at Power Line  posted a story yesterday which further complicates the issue.  Although the authorities in Dubai are saying that Mossad murdered al-Mabhouh, the only people arrested for the crime so far are two Palestinian Arabs. 

The New York Times reported on February 24th that two of the suspects in the murder named by the Dubai police have fled Dubai for Iran. 

The bottom line here is that this story makes absolutely no sense at all.  The murder was very sloppy for Mossad, the two suspects who were arrested were Palestinian Arabs, and two of the suspects have fled to Iran.  Somehow I don’t think that if I were an Israeli member of Mossad, Iran would be on my list of places to flee. 

I am awaiting further developments in this story before I draw any conclusions as to who did what!