Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Hamas claims to nab Palestinian who aided alleged 2018 Mossad hit in Malaysia

2022-01-10

[IsraelTimes] Hamas, one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede, says unidentified suspect admitted to involvement in slaying of Fadi al-Batsh, an engineer who allegedly helped the terror group build weapons; father demands death penalty

The Hamas terror group announced on Sunday that it had arrested a Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
Paleostinian who it alleged collaborated with the Israeli Mossad spy agency in the assassination of a Hamas weapons expert in Malaysia.

Fadi Mohammed al-Batsh, a Gaza-born electrical engineer and avowed Hamas member, was shot full of holes by two motorcyclists as he walked to dawn prayers in Kuala Lumpur in 2018, in a killing widely blamed on Israel.

"We arrested a person involved in the liquidation of engineer Fadi al-Batsh in Malaysia. He admitted to participating in the liquidation, which was commissioned by the Israeli Mossad," the Hamas-run Gaza Interior Ministry said in a statement Sunday.

The suspect has yet to be publicly identified by Hamas authorities. al-Batsh’s father told Gaza media that he would demand the death penalty and ask that he be allowed to carry it out himself.

"I will request to do to him exactly what he did to my son," Mohammad al-Batsh told the Hamas-linked Shehab news agency.

After al-Batsh was killed, the scientist’s family immediately blamed the Mossad for his death. Hamas officially claimed al-Batsh as a member posthumously. The armed wing of Hamas described al-Batsh as a member of the terror group’s military wing and "a commander."

Israeli politician Avigdor Liberman, who was then serving as defense minister, denied Israeli involvement in the killing. But Liberman also said that al-Batsh was involved in designing Hamas’s missile systems.

"This man was no saint. It was not about improving the electrical grid or improving infrastructure and water... He was engaged in the production of rockets, in improving the accuracy of rockets," Liberman told Army Radio at the time.

"Even if it wasn’t us, there’s no reason to shed a tear," Liberman added.

Israel has a long history of conducting assassinations of its enemies, both in the West Bank and Gaza and abroad. In the mid-1990s, Israeli agents allegedly bungled an attempt to kill Hamas chief Khaled Mashal in Jordan, resulting in a diplomatic crisis.

The deadly attacks increased during the Second Intifada, when Israel allegedly assassinated hundreds of senior Paleostinian terror group members in an effort to halt the wave of suicide kabooms against Israelis.

In Dubai, in 2010, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a key Hamas missile purchaser and importer, was assassinated in his hotel room in a killing widely attributed to Mossad.

The Israeli security services formally disavow most operations. But former officials have extensively discussed the policy in public interviews.

The Mossad has been also accused of targeting those who develop advanced weapons on behalf of terror groups, including Iranian nuclear scientists.

Top Iranian nuclear researcher Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was allegedly assassinated in November 2020 in a sophisticated hit led by a Mossad team.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Israel's arms dealers should remember today's allies can be tomorrow's enemies

2020-08-27

[YNet]- Karl Marx wrote that history repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as a farce - and veterans of Israel's military industries can certainly relate.

Israel has many times watched attempts to improve relations through arms sales become a security threat.

Take, for example, the Israeli-made Soltam mortars, which were sold to Iran's Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and a decade later landed on the heads of IDF troops in Lebanon.

Or the various missiles, drones and advanced intel systems sold to the Turkish army during the honeymoon period of the 90s, which today are owned by one of Israel's most hostile enemies and which the Iranians have no doubt already been given a peek at.

Thank goodness the plans to sell Turkey versions of the Merkava tank and the Ofek-class spy satellite did not go through before Recep Tayyip Erdogan came to power.

Worthy of mention is the Israeli-made CCTV system sold to Dubai, which helped identify those whom the local police chief claimed were Mossad agents behind the killing of Hamas military leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a hotel room in 2010.

The ongoing opposition of Israeli defense officials to a plan by Mossad chief Yossi Cohen to sell advanced weaponry to the UAE is based on a clear view of the ever-shifting dynamics in the Middle East.

The Defense Ministry is the first to have a vested interest in exporting Israeli weapons systems, something that strengthens the defense industries and helps them develop future generations of IDF weaponry.

The ministry even receives royalties from each foreign export of systems developed with state funding by external contractors such as Israel Aerospace Industries, Elbit and Rafael.

The products developed by the Israeli defense industry are some of the best in the world, and it is only natural for the UAE to want them for its own army.

But the recent sale of Iron Dome and Windbreaker missile defense systems to the U.S., Spike missiles to Germany, spy satellites and reconnaissance aircraft to Italy, UAVs to Switzerland and radar to the Czech Republic are not on the same level as selling such systems to a Muslim Gulf state - even if it shares a common enemy like Iran.

The Defense Ministry has already approved previous sales of Israeli military technology to the UAE, albeit not very advanced systems and under clear restrictions.

The Middle East is not Europe, experience has shown that today's friendly ally can easily become tomorrow's archenemy.

So even with the desire to build closer ties to the Gulf states and use oil money to boost the Israeli economy, the country must carefully consider any security deal and know when to say no.

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Africa North

Tunisia arrests two Bosnians in 2016 killing of Hamas drone expert

2018-12-13

Bosnians? He probably trifled with someone’s sister... or looked at her too long.

[IsraelTimes] Gazoo-based terror group has blamed Israel’s Mossad for the liquidation of Mohammed al-Zoari, one of its top scientists

Tunisia announced on Tuesday that it locked away
Book 'im, Mahmoud!
two suspects over the 2016 liquidation of Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth", drone expert Mohammed al-Zoari.

It identified the two men as Bosnian nationals Albert Sarak and Alain Kamedi, the Walla news site reported.

The December 15, 2016, liquidation of al-Zoari was widely blamed on Israel’s Mossad, including by the Hamas terror group, which acknowledged after the killing that Zoari was a central figure in its weapons development apparatus and called him a pioneer in developing its unmanned drones.

Tunisia’s Interior Ministry said this week the two suspects entered Tunisia via a sea port on December 8, 2016, a week before the killing. The men allegedly claimed to be representatives of tour companies, and toured the Djerba area and the south of the country.

Officials allege that the two planned the killing for 18 months, and had used Tunisian citizens in the operation.

The latest claims follow Tunisian authorities’ announcement in May that they had arrested a suspect in the liquidation, whom Arab media outlets say was nabbed in Croatia on March 13.

It’s not clear what the latest announcement means for the claim, voiced by numerous Arab outlets, that Israel was behind the killing. There was no immediate report of a connection between the Bosnian suspects and Israeli espionage bodies.

Shortly after the liquidation, a senior Hamas official, Mushir al-Masri, told a Tunisian radio station that "the Zionist enemy" was the only party likely to benefit from the liquidation of Zoari, and that Mossad had a long history of killing experts with capability to develop military technology, especially those related to developing UAVs.

Israel does not want such capabilities to reach Paleostinian organizations in Gazoo, Masri said.

Hamas has also blamed Israel for the killing of its rocket scientist Fadi al-Batsh, 35, in Malaysia in April.

Zoari, an aviation scientist and engineer with longstanding links to Hamas, was rubbed out at point-blank range on December 15, 2016, in the Tunisian city of Sfax.

Zoari was said to have helped Hamas develop unmanned drones.

He was shot multiple times ‐ some reports said as many as 20 bullets were fired at him ‐ while sitting in his car near his home.

A senior Tunisian journalist said at the time that the Mossad had been tracking Zoari for quite some time, and was responsible for his liquidation.

Israel’s Channel 2 news said Zoari was reported to have received death threats because of his Paleostinian terror links. However,
it was a brave man who first ate an oyster...
Channel 2 also quoted Tunisian security officials as saying that the investigation of the death did not immediately suggest an liquidation by a foreign intelligence agency.

There was no official Israeli response to the reports.

Al Jazeera’s take ignores non-Mossad possibilities:

On December 15, 2016, a 49-year-old Tunisian man was rubbed out outside his home in Sfax, 270 kilometres south-east of Tunis.

Mohammed al-Zawari had been known locally as an aviation engineer interested in drone technology, but in fact, he had led a double life, heading a drone development project for the military wing of Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",, the Qassam Brigades.

According to Al Jazeera Arabic's investigation by Tamer Almisshal, several parties were involved in a coordinated plot against al-Zawari, who up until his death was called 'Mourad' by many of those who knew him, including his wife.

Almisshal believes it has all the hallmarks of an extrajudicial killing by Israel's intelligence agency, Mossad, but these cases are notoriously difficult to prove and must for the moment remain speculation.

Al-Zawari first left Tunisia in 1991 as a dissident against the regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. He managed to travel using a fake passport and worked in a military manufacturing installation in Sudan. He only returned home after the 2011 revolution that forced Ben Ali out of the country.

Shortly after his death, Hamas announced that the drone expert had worked for the Qassam Brigades for a decade. They credited him with developing the Ababeel drones used against Israel in Gazoo in the summer of 2014.

"By the 2008 Israeli aggression against Gazoo, the team had manufactured 30 drones in an Iranian military factory," according to a Qassam Brigades member going by the name of 'Abu Mohammed'. Another Brigades member, Abu Mujahid, says drones were important to them because "we can conduct it with precision against military targets and avoid civilians."

As well as building drones, al-Zawari did innovative research into remote-controlled submarines, as potential combat devices for the Qassam Brigades.

Israeli journalist Moav Vardi went to Tunisia to investigate the Zawari case. "It's not a criminal liquidation by a gang, or a neighbour's quarrel," he says. "From what it seems, Israel has the interest and the ability to carry out such an operation."

There have been other alleged Mossad liquidations outside Israeli territory. For instance, Israel admitted responsibility for the 1988 killing of a senior Paleostinian commander Abu Jihad, whose real name was Khalil al-Wazir, at his home in Tunis, Tunisia. Wazir was a friend and deputy to then Paleostinian chief Yasser Arafat, who headed the Paleostine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

Mossad is also alleged to have been behind the 2010 murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel. He was the Hamas logistics commander for the Qassam Brigades; and of the Black September founder Ali Hassan Salameh, or The Red Prince, using a car loaded with heavy explosives in Beirut in 1979.

In March 2018, two men were jugged
Please don't kill me!
in connection with Zawari's murder, Croatian Alen Camdzic and Bosnian Elvir Sarac. In May, Croatia's highest court blocked Camdzic's extradition to Tunisia and Sarac was released after a Bosnian court refused to hand him over to Tunisia, saying there was no extradition deal between the countries.

Until the Tunisian authorities manage to extradite the two men, the case of the murder of Mohammed al-Zawari cannot begin to be resolved - whoever was behind it.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Decision to assassinate Arafat approved by Saudis: Former senior advisor

2018-12-11

[PRESSTV] A former senior adviser to Yasser Arafat, the late leader of the Paleostine Liberation Organization (PLO), has said that Arafat's death was not natural and he was actually assassinated, with Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
approving the decision to assassinate him.
You could tell it was a Saudi plot because they never found the body.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Paleostine’s Arabic-language Shehab news agency, Bassam Abu Sharif said former US president, George W. Bush, had contacted Saudi officials after a meeting with former Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, during which Arafat's liquidation was discussed, and Saudi authorities consented.

Abu Sharif went on to say that the Riyadh regime approved of Arafat’s liquidation, because it viewed him as an obstacle to the Arab Peace Initiative, which envisioned a so-called two-state solution to the Israeli-Paleostinian conflict.

"Sharon met with Bush at the White House and told him that he could no longer keep his promise of not physically attacking Yasser Arafat, because he was a leading terror figure and collaborating with Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",, and that Hamas operations were carried out with the approval and blessing of Arafat," the senior member of the PLO pointed out.

Abu Sharif highlighted that Bush contacted Saudi officials the following day and informed them of the matter, and the Al Saud regime agreed to the decision to assassinate Arafat.

The late Paleostinian leader's adviser noted that his new book, titled Salty Fish, contains many secrets about the liquidation of Arafat; Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the former leader of the Paleostinian resistance movement Hamas, who was killed in an Israeli ~~Arclight~~ airstrike

in 2004; as well as senior Hamas figure, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was found dead in his hotel room in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, back in 2010.

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Europe

Report: Paris turns into Mossad's playground

2018-07-27

Fascinating stuff.

[Ynet] According to Le Monde, the Israeli spy agency set up an operations room in the French capital for Hamas, the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood, official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh's liquidation in Dubai, among other missions; 'French hands are tied, our ability to respond to their actions is limited,' complains French intelligence official.

Gay Paree has become a center of operations for Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, according to an article published this week in French newspaper Le Monde.

The article, titled "The Mossad's shadow hovers over Gay Paree," cites senior French intelligence officials, one of whom claimed that "The city is the Mossad's playground. The Chinese and the Russians may be our enemies, but let us not forget the Israelis and the Americans are also conducting themselves with great aggression."

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Home Front: WoT

US charges 2 Palestinian terrorists for 2010 murder of American tourist in Israel

2017-04-14

Erasing yet another Obama legacy.

[IsraelTimes] Arrest warrants issued for Paleostinian stabbers, currently tossed in the calaboose in Israel, who killed Kristine Luken and seriously maimed another.

Charges were filed in the United States Thursday against two Paleostinian Death Eaters tossed in the calaboose
Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try!
in Israel for the 2010 murder of a US citizen who was visiting the Jewish state.

Ayad Fatafta and Kifah Ghanimat

...the ringleader of a criminal gang in the Jerusalem-area city of Beit Shemesh that since 1997 had been involved in the usual murder, robbery, rape, etc. But in 2010 they turned serious, vowing to avenge the killing of Hamas Number 3 Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai, widely believed to have been done by Mossad. So they all ended up in jail, many not for the first time...

face federal charges for murdering Kristine Luken on December 18, 2010, in a stabbing attack in the Jerusalem Forest that also seriously maimed Kay Wilson, a UK citizen who lives in Israel.

The two terrorists, both residents of Bethlehem -- which is under the control of the Paleostinian Authority -- are currently serving prison sentences in Israel. Arrest warrants were issued against them in the US on Thursday.

In 2012, Fatafta was sentenced to life imprisonment plus 20 years, and Ghanimat was sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment and a further 60 years, for the lethal stabbing attack as well as another crime.

According to the US affidavit, Fatafta and Ghanimat stabbed Luken -- a 44-year-old US national -- to death while she was hiking near an archaeological site on a visit to Israel. She died at the scene.

According to the US Justice Department, "the maximum penalty for a person convicted of murdering a US national outside the US is a lifetime term of incarceration or death."

Wilson described her injuries in a Times of Israel blog post.

"I sustained 13 machete wounds in my lungs and diaphragm, six compound fractures in my ribs, 30 additional fractures, a dislocated shoulder, a crushed sternum and a broken shoulder blade," she wrote.

Upon receiving the news of the charges against the two terrorists, Wilson posted on Facebook that it was "the best news I’ve had in six years."

She described the emotional nature of the arrest warrants, writing, "I’m so relieved, I’m near to tears."

Link

Great White North

Suspected Mossad agent given new identity in Canada, and betrayed.

2014-02-16

[Jerusalem Post] Canadian-Iranian ~~businessman~~
MOIS intelligence operative
Arian Azerber told The Toronto Sun on Saturday that the Canadian government has granted a new passport to a suspected Mossad agent who had his picture published by Dubai Police in 2010 after the assassination of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in 2010.

Azerber claims that his information was obtained from Triana Kennedy, an employee at the federal agency Passport Canada, with whom he was having an affair.
Important enough target to give up his source as creds.
Triana Kennedy has been suspended from her job and is currently under federal investigation. She is suspected of leaking confidential government information.
Nice work Ms. Kennedy, bet you never saw that one coming. Next time forget the multicult thing and find a nice Irish lumberjack.
According to Azerber, Kennedy told him that the passport had been renewed after the assassination of Mabhouh in Dubai was exposed and that the Canadian government's claim that it had nothing to do with the affair is a lie. "It [Canada] provided a new passport," claimed Azerber. Azerber also told the newspaper the name and address of the person who received the passport. The Toronto Sun did not publish this information for privacy and security reasons.

After pictures were exposed by Dubai authorities of 26 suspected Mossad agents reportedly related to the assassination of Mabhouh, several countries suspended the passports of those people identified in the pictures. The passports belonged to Canada, the UK, Australia, Germany, Ireland, and France.

It is unclear if Arian Azerber is an uninvolved business man or if he has links to a foreign intelligence agency. A spokesperson for Passport Canada refused to comment on the matter.
Unclear? Lock Azerber and Kennedy away for long, long time. They may have just signed this fellow's death sentence.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Smugglers Galore: How Iran Arms Its Allies

2012-12-29

An explosion in southern Lebanon last week destroyed what is believed to have been a Hezbollah weapons depot. This latest in a series of mysterious "accidents" in Hezbollah-controlled precincts proved, as one Israeli official wryly remarked, that those who "sleep with rockets and amass large stockpiles of weapons are in a very unsafe place." With the Party of God's overland supply route through Syria choked off by the 22-month-long uprising against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, and Israel virtually in total control of the maritime route, Hezbollah's stockpile is being systematically degraded.

Yet the arsenal of Iran's other regional proxy force, Hamas, is growing. The Israeli Defense Forces' campaign against Hamas last month in Gaza targeted Iranian missiles, including the Fajr-5, capable of reaching Tel Aviv and other points north, and destroyed most of them within the first hours of the conflict. But Hamas is already rearming, and it's not clear that Israel or even Muslim Brotherhood-governed Egypt, which is ostensibly capable of controlling the Sinai tunnel networks through which Hamas receives its arms, can do much about it.

Israel's next war with Hamas -- a further confrontation is almost inevitable -- may well feature not only Iranian missiles smuggled through Sudan, but NATO-quality small arms and shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles that come by way of Hamas's most recent weapons supplier, post-Qaddafi Libya.

Israel's Operation Pillar of Defense also zeroed in on Hamas commanders, most notably Ahmed al-Jabari, Hamas's chief of staff, responsible for the group's military operations. It was Jabari who replaced Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, assassinated in a Dubai hotel room almost three years ago in an operation usually attributed to Israel. In a sense, then, Pillar of Defense began back in January 2010 in that most profligate of the United Arab Emirates -- which is also a veritable weapons bazaar.

Link

Arabia

UAE Releases Fatah Members Accused Of Aiding Hamas Murder

2012-10-01

[Ma'an] Two Fatah members accused of involvement in the 2010 murder of a senior Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, official in Dubai have been released by authorities in the United Arab Emirates, the Al-Aqsa Brigades said Sunday.

Anwar Shheibar and Ahmad Abu Hasanien were freed after being held in the UAE for two years, a statement said, without mentioning an exact release date. The pair were accused by Dubai police of providing logistical support to an operation which led to the liquidation of a Hamas leader in 2010.

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was found dead in a Dubai hotel on January 20 having been killed by a team of 11 mercenaries. Dubai police say that a hit squad sent by the Israeli spy agency Mossad suffocated Mabhouh with a pillow after injecting him with a muscle relaxant.

Israel neither confirmed nor denied involvement.
They didn't need to...
The alleged assassins, 10 men and one woman, all carried fraudulent European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
passports which had been acquired through the identity theft of EU citizens.

Hamas had accused Anwar Shheibar and Ahmad Abu Hasanien of involvement in the murder, with Fatah denying any connection to the incident.

A website run by Hamas said that both men had fled Gazoo in 2006 and were working for a construction company owned by former Fatah official Muhammad Dahlan, AP reported at the time.

The families of Shheibar and Hasanien are seeking legal action over their prolonged detention, the Al-Aqsa Brigades statement added.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Assassination in Damascus: 'Mabhouh's aide' killed

2012-06-28

Hamas says it is launching investigation to discover who is behind 'despicable crime.' Al-Mayadeen: Kamal Ranaja served as aide to top Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, man killed in Dubai in 2010

A senior Hamas operative has been assassinated in his Damascus
...The place where Pencilneck hangs his brass hat...
apartment, the Islamist terror group announced Wednesday evening.

According to a statement by a member of Hamas' politburo, the organization did not know who was responsible for the death of Kamal Ranaja, known as Nizzar Abu-Mujhad, but was launching an investigation to discover who is behind the "despicable crime."

There was no word about the manner in which Ranaja met his death. No Hamas official has yet pointed a finger at any third party, such as Israel or the Assad regime.

However,
by candlelight every wench is handsome...
shortly after his death was announced, the new pan-Arabic television station Al-Mayadeen reported that he used to serve as aide to Mahmoud al-Mabhouh,

...who was mysteriously assassinated in his very expensive hotel room in Dubai, possibly by tennis players who disliked his manners, or possibly by Mossad...

a senior Hamas member who took part in several terror attacks and was also involved in kidnapping and killing IDF soldiers. Mabhouh was assassinated in Dubai in 2010. The deed was laid at the door of Mossad, which never confirmed or denied the accusation.

Mabhouh was responsible for smuggling weapons into the Gazoo Strip from Iran.

The SDyrian opposition claimed

Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Leveler of Latakia...
's regime was responsible for Ranaja's liquidation.

One opposition activist, a former journalist, said Assad's regime ordered the hit. She claimed Ranaja was tortured before he was killed. According to her, the hit was a message to Hamas, which turned its back on Assad following the violent crackdown on the opposition.

In recent years, Arab officials have blamed Israel for a number of deaths of cut-throats outside the country, such as the February 2008 liquidation of Imad Mugniyeh -- an operations commander for Hizbullah. Mugniyeh is the most senior terrorist Israel has been accused of killing since the death of Hizbullah head Abbas Musawi in the early 1990s.

The news of Rajana's liquidation comes on the heels of former Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades commander Ibrahim Hamed's conviction for 46 counts of murder earlier Wednesday.

Hamed was placed in durance vile
Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out!
in 2006 and convicted of direct involvement in a number of terror attacks that left at least 46 Israelis dead and hundreds maimed.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Police nab Palestinian cell linked to murders of American and Israeli

2011-01-27

[Haaretz] Police believe that the same cell carried out the murder of 53-year-old Netta Blatt-Sorek, a resident of Zichron Ya'akov, whose body was found a year ago near the Jerusalem-area monastery of Beit Jamal last year.

The bully boyz are suspected in two cases of attempted murder, one count of rape, another of attempted rape, seven incidents of robbery, seven cases of breaking-and-entering, and for shooting at an Israeli military jeep.

Jerusalem District Police chief Aharon Franco said that the cell started off as a group of petty criminals and turned into a nationalist threat when it began carrying out attacks to avenge the January 2010 liquidation of Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai, an incident which has been widely blamed on Israel's Mossad.

Thirteen members of the cell have already been jugged; four of them are expected to be indicted on Wednesday.

Police began detaining the suspects in December 2010, about a day after Luken's body was found near Moshav Mata, where she and Wilson had been attacked by two men while hiking in the area. Wilson managed to survive after she played dead and then dragged herself bound and hand-cuffed to the road nearby.

The suspects were all known to police prior to the investigation and most of them had served jail-time in the past.

Wilson's detailed witness testimony enabled police to narrow down the suspects and link the cell to the other security incidents in question, Franco told news hounds in a briefing on Wednesday after the gag order on the case was lifted.

Israel Police, together with Shin Bet forces, special task units of the Border Police and Israel Defense Forces jugged three of the suspects -- Kifah Ghanimat, the suspected ringleader, Mohammed Ghanimat, and IIyad Fatpatah -- a day after Luken's body was discovered. The suspects are all residents of the West Bank.

All three confessed to Luken's murder and led Sherlocks to suspect their involvement in Blatt-Sorek's murder a year earlier. Police say the three men told interrogators they wanted to kill a Jew - though Luken was in fact a Christian.

The DNA sample taken from Kifah Gnimat matched the DNA findings preserved from the site where Blatt-Sorek's body was found. In his confession, Kifah Gnimat implicated Ibrahim Ghanimat, who was subsequently jugged.

Police had not been convinced that Blatt-Sorek had been murdered due to inconclusive autopsy results, and had not ruled out the possibility that her death had been suicide.

Her family insisted that she would not have killed herself, however and urged police to investigate the case as a murder.

Franco stressed during his briefing Wednesday that he had agreed to "look into the severe option and treat [Blatt-Sorek's case] as a murder" despite the expert opinion provided by the pathologist.

Police Sherlocks began to suspect during their questioning that the cell was involved in a series of criminal activities in the Jerusalem-area city of Beit Shemesh since 1997. The suspected ringleader, Kifah Ghanimat, was found to have had a hand in most of the perpetrated crimes.

In addition to the murders, Ghanimat is personally suspected of raping a Beit Shemesh resident in a nearby cave. The rest of the group is suspected of stabbing an Israeli couple in the same area, robbing tourists, stabbing tourists, breaking and entering homes in the area and car theft.

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Great White North

Canadian police deny Mabhouh arrest

2010-10-22

[Al Jazeera] Canadian police have denied claims by Dubai's police chief that a suspect in the assassination of a Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, leader killed in the emirate in January has been jugged in Canada.

Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan Tamim said on Tuesday that the arrest of a person over the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was being covered up by Canadian officials.

Tamim told broadcaster Al-Arabiya that Canada was the location of the arrest. He had previously said only that the arrest was in a Western country.

The police chief also said that Canada had told Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), to keep the arrest secret.

Gilles Michaud, head of National Security Criminal Investigations of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, told Canada's The National newspaper on Tuesday that he was unaware of any arrest related to the case.

Al-Mabhouh's assassination at a Dubai hotel on January 19 made headlines when Dubai police accused an Israeli hit squad posing as tourists for the killing.

At the time, Israel said of the claims that it maintains a "policy of ambiguity" on intelligence matters.

'Political storm'
Al Jizz's Dan Nolan, reporting from Dubai, said that the conflicting accounts of the arrest have intensified the increasingly troubled relationship between Canada and the emirate.

"These claims are actually the latest step in what is a political storm between the United Arab Emirates and Canada," said Nolan.

The relationship between the two countries soured over BlackBerry services, with the UAE threatening to suspend services for the Canadian-made device unless its maker, Research in Motion (RIM), complied with the country's telecom laws.

RIM signed a deal this week with the UAE to avoid suspension of services to its users, but tensions between Dubai and Canada have been building over other issues.

"The UAE has been negotiating with Canada to get more landing slots for Emirates airline and Etihad airline ... to allow those airlines to fly more frequently into Canada," said Nolan.

Canada granted the airlines only one additional flight per week.

"Soon after that, the UAE reacted by failing to renew a lease which allows the Canadian military to use a base here on Emerati soil as a staging point for their troops who are in Afghanistan," said Nolan.

Calling the tensions between the two countries "an escalating diplomatic and trade war," Nolan also said that a plane carrying Peter McKay, Canada's defence minister, was refused permission to land in the UAE last week.

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