Feb 22, 2010
No More Secrets?
Sunday’s London Times details the (probable Mossad) assassination of Hamas terrorist mastermind Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. The background on the operation, and other recent hits (featuring exploding headrests, yacht-borne snipers, and poisoned earwax) is entertaining. Read the whole thing.
What amazes me, though, is how the operation came to light. By most standards, the operation was textbook. The hit team had left the country for hours before al-Mabhouh was missed, let alone discovered dead. Initially, it was believed he died of natural causes. Only several weeks of work and a fiendishly difficult autopsy suggested that he was killed. All the elements Mossad would need to have plausible deniability, if not strict operational security.
And yet, pictures of the operators have been beamed across the world and the operation is now known in exquisite (or if you’re Mossad, excruciating) detail. The reason? Dubai has an extensive system of CCTV cameras that photographed each of the Mossad agents repeatedly during their stay in country, enabling authorities to establish the who, what, when, where and how of the operation. (al-Mabhouh’s murderous history should be ample to supply the “why”).
One detail in the London TImes story is chilling. Dubai’s facility with CCTV cameras “astonished” Mossad.
The uncertainty alone was enough for Hamas to declare that Israel had killed their man. The police investigated, CCTV images were gathered and and the affair began to unravel.
One well-informed Israeli source said: “The operative teams were very much aware of the CCTV in Dubai, but they have been astonished at the ability of the Dubai police to reconstruct and assemble all the images into one account.”
Two questions: How much longer will the idea of “plausible deniability” be meaningful (if it hasn’t been stripped of all meaning already)? And if Mossad’s legendary operational security could be upended by Dubai, what chance will we as private citizens have against the likes of Google or the US Federal Government?
Not right out of the movies, but chilling nevertheless for privacy advocates.
A bonus question: how much longer will Dubai remain a “hub of international intrigue”?
Related Reading
Powerlineblog have been entertaining poking fun at the “shock, shock” exhibited at the hit. See:
Updates: March 14
Clearing out my feedreader, I happened across additional developments. The articles were published long enough ago that I don’t know what links I followed to get there, so apologies in advance for the lack of credit.
Former CIA operative Robert Baer had a fascinating op ed in the WSJ. He provides additional details about how technology has changed assassination and more about Israel’s recent operations.
“…the Mabhouh assassination had all the hallmarks of an Israeli hit: a large team, composed of men and women, and an almost flawless execution. If it had been a Russian hit, for instance, they would have used a pistol or a car bomb, indifferent to the chaos left behind.
The truth is that Mr. Mabhouh’s assassination was conducted according to the book—a military operation in which the environment is completely controlled by the assassins. At least 25 people are needed to carry off something like this. You need “eyes on” the target 24 hours a day to ensure that when the time comes he is alone. You need coverage of the police—assassinations go very wrong when the police stumble into the middle of one. …
The art of assassination, the kind we have seen over and over again in Hollywood movies, may be as passé as killing people by arsenic or with a garrote. You just can’t get away with it anymore.
…Israel is not at war with the Palestinians, or even really with Hamas. It is at war with Hamas militants, people who have shed Israeli blood. The Israelis know who they are, and as a matter of course send hit squads into Gaza and the West Bank to kill them. The Israelis call it “targeted killings”—assassination by any other name.
A couple of years ago I visited the house where the Israeli military assassinated a Palestinian militant in the West Bank. It was in a makeshift refugee camp, where you could touch houses on both sides of the path only by raising your arms. The place was teeming with people. How the Israeli team got in, assassinated the militant and got out without any casualties, I will never know. The point is that the Israelis have become very good at it.
Roger Simon provides a round up of additional coverage. What were two of the assassins doing fleeing to Iran?