
KABUL: US special forces commander visited a family in rural Afghanistan to plead for forgiveness after finally admitting that his troops killed five innocent people in a raid. Vice-Admiral William H. McRaven went to Paktia to the home of family who lost two sons, two pregnant women and teenage girl when the US special forces [...]

BAGHDAD: The case of “collateral murder,” the WikiLeaks today released harrowing until-now secret video of a U.S. Army Apache helicopter in Baghdad in 2007 repeatedly opening fire on a group of men that included a Reuter’s photographer and his driver. This is the most shocking footage to come out of Iraq. None of the members [...]
April 6, 2010 | Posted in
MIDDLE EAST |
Read More »

JERUSALEM: Four Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers died in clashes on the Gaza border on Friday, an army general said, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu consulted his security cabinet on US pressure on settlement building. “An officer and a soldier were killed and two others slightly wounded in an exchange of fire with terrorists planting [...]
March 27, 2010 | Posted in
MIDDLE EAST |
Read More »

LONDON: Britain announced Tuesday it was kicking out an Israeli diplomat over the use of fake British passports in the killing of a Hamas chief in Dubai, in a sharp escalation of tension triggered by the murder. Foreign Secretary David Miliband said there were “compelling reasons” suggesting that Israel was to blame for the forgeries [...]
March 24, 2010 | Posted in
EUROPE |
Read More »

JERUSALEM: Riots broke out in Jerusalem and the West Bank yesterday as Palestinians staged a “day of rage” in protest at Israeli plans to build 1,600 new homes in the disputed east of the city. The announcement of the planned construction caused the worst diplomatic crisis in decades between Israel and its most important ally, [...]

DUBAI: Dubai’s police chief has accused Israel of “vast falsification” of travel documents, noting that dozens of false passports were uncovered following a Hamas leader’s murder in the emirate. “I ring alarm bells. Israel is falsifying Western passports on a large scale. We discover forged passports on a daily basis,” Dahi Khalfan told AFP. “The world [...]
March 10, 2010 | Posted in
MIDDLE EAST |
Read More »

DUBAI: The Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was injected with a strong sedative before being suffocated in his hotel room by suspected Mossad agents, Dubai police have revealed. The results of a toxicology report released today show that the Hamas commander was paralysed by an injection of succinylcholine, a fast-acting muscle relaxant. He was then suffocated [...]
March 3, 2010 | Posted in
MIDDLE EAST |
Read More »

SYDNEY: Israel’s Mossad has regularly faked Australian passports for its spies, an ex-agent said on Thursday, as anger grew over the use of foreign travel documents for an alleged assassination. Former Mossad case officer Victor Ostrovsky told ABC public radio that the spy agency had used Australian passports for previous operations before last month’s hit [...]
February 26, 2010 | Posted in
MIDDLE EAST |
Read More »

DUBAI: Police widened their search in the hunt for the killers of a top Hamas militant in a luxury hotel, saying 15 new Western passport holders are now suspects, with the total number sought now 26. A police statement said the 15, including the holders of six British and three French passports, are being sought [...]
February 25, 2010 | Posted in
MIDDLE EAST |
Read More »

JERUSALEM: Israel’s parliamentary opposition leader on Tuesday praised the assassination of a Hamas commander by Mossad in Dubai last month, in the first such comment from a top official. Tzipi Livni of the centrist Kadima Party said the death of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was good, but she did not indicate who was behind the killing. “The [...]
February 24, 2010 | Posted in
MIDDLE EAST |
Read More »

DUBAI: Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, the Hamas official assassinated in Dubai, was betrayed by a close associate, the emirate’s police chief claimed as it emerged today that the Palestinian’s murderers used more fake Irish passports. Lieutenant General Dhahi Khalfan Tamim described whoever leaked details of Mahbouh’s arrival to his assassins as “the real killer”, Abu Dhabi’s al-Khalij [...]

DUBAI: Interpol should help arrest the head of Mossad if Israel’s spy agency was responsible for the killing of a Hamas commander in Dubai, the emirate’s police chief said today. In comments to be aired on Dubai TV, Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan Tamim called for Interpol to issue “a red notice against the head of [...]
February 19, 2010 | Posted in
MIDDLE EAST |
Read More »

JERUSALEM: A key security operative of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas was under arrest in Syria tonight on suspicion of having helped an alleged Israeli hit squad identify Mahmoud al-Mabhouh before he was assassinated in Dubai. Palestinian sources in the Gulf confirmed Nahro Massoud, a Hamas security official, was in detention and under interrogation in [...]
February 18, 2010 | Posted in
MIDDLE EAST |
Read More »

JERUSALEM: British authorities are investigating how six British nationals apparently had their identities stolen by suspected Mossad agents on a mission to assassinate a Hamas leader in Dubai. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office confirmed that the identities used by six members of the 11-strong hit squad were those of real British passport holders living in [...]
February 17, 2010 | Posted in
MIDDLE EAST |
Read More »

DUBAI: The Dubai police department today released photos of the 11 people allegedly responsible for assassinating Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh last month — and the chief of police says he’s close to issuing arrest warrants for the group. Everyone in the group held European passports, according to police: six British, three Irish, one French and [...]
February 16, 2010 | Posted in
MIDDLE EAST |
Read More »

JERUSALEM: Israel is waging a covert assassination campaign across the Middle East in an effort to stop its key enemies co-ordinating their activities. Israeli agents have been targeting meetings between members of Hamas and the leadership of the militant Hezbollah group, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. They are also suspected of recent killings in Dubai, [...]
February 13, 2010 | Posted in
MIDDLE EAST |
Read More »

GAZA: Hamas, in an unusual move that seems unlikely to herald a change in tactics by the Islamist group, has expressed regret for the deaths of Israeli civilians in Palestinian rocket attacks during fighting in Gaza a year ago. Israel, where Hamas suicide bombers have killed hundreds of civilians over two decades, dismissed any apology [...]

JERUSALEM: Israel has reprimanded two senior army officers who were responsible for firing white phosphorus artillery shells at a UN compound during last year’s offensive in Gaza. In the first admission of any wrongdoing the Israeli military found that Brigadier-General Eyal Eisenberg and Colonel Ilan Malka were guilty “of exceeding their authority in a manner [...]
February 2, 2010 | Posted in
MIDDLE EAST |
Read More »

The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas accused Israel yesterday of assassinating one of its military chiefs in Dubai — a man who helped to found the group’s armed wing and who was behind the kidnapping and killing of two Israeli soldiers in the first intifada 21 years ago. Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was a key to the [...]

Israel’s spy agency Mossad and the country’s special forces have carried out a number of assassinations of Palestinian militants in the past and have also been blamed for killings which the Jewish state has never publicly taken responsibility for. In addition, the army and air force have carried out so-called ‘targeted killings’ of numerous Palestinian [...]