Dubai's security authorities received all the praise last week after revealing details of the assassination of a senior Hamas leader by Mossad agents in the UAE last month. In 'Dubai invests in security', Elias Harfoush wrote in the London-based Al-Hayat that despite the fact that the assassination of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in his room at the Al-Bustan Rotana Hotel in Dubai was supposed to look like an accident of asphyxiation or suicide. "Dubai's government and security apparatus have proved that crimes and murders in this city are not allowed to go unnoticed." Harfoush contends that after less than a month since the crime was committed, the Dubai police were able to release to the whole world a complete recording "one that reminds us of James Bond films, showing the sequence in which the operation was carried out." According to Harfoush, the Dubai government has proven "through the exceptional security mobilisation it showed after the assassination" that it knows that "it cannot preserve its international reputation by just building tall towers and opening the door to broad international investments. Rather, this should develop alongside complete security vigilance that does not fear anyone or anything." The Dubai government, Harfoush argues, could have saved itself the burden of opening such a security case abounding with obstacles. He said Al-Mabhouh had not informed security services in the Emirates of his arrival in the first place, not to mention that he had entered the country under a different identity, as part of the security precautions he had taken. "Dubai could also have avoided the embarrassment caused by revealing that the Mossad agency had forged European passports for those who carried out the assassination," Harfoush wrote. But the eyes of the Dubai government are open "so as not to leave it being used as a passageway for the region's conflicts, with all the implications these conflicts hold, available as they are to anyone," Harfoush wrote. In the daily London-based daily Asharq Al-Awsat, Abdel-Rahman Al-Rashed wrote that by this assassination "the Israelis committed a crime against the UAE, not Hamas." "Assassination is a dangerous political crime that could open the door to secret wars that no country in the world can tolerate," Al-Rashed wrote in 'Confronting thieves and spies'. Al-Rashed wrote that Dubai had smoothed the way for millions of people seeking to work or holiday in the country, eliminating bureaucratic red tape and creating a model of liberty in the region, but that it was now being threatened by such crimes and crimes committed by major gangs. "Dubai is a city visited by 15 million people a year, with foreigners constituting 90 per cent of its residents, and therefore it is only natural that security would be a chief concern," Al-Rashed concluded. Also in Asharq Al-Awsat Mohamed Diab described the incident as "a remarkable achievement which is in the interests of the security of Dubai, and a good indicator of how modern cities can significantly contribute to their own security with regards to detecting criminals, documenting crime, and providing evidence." The video recording that the Dubai police released last week, wrote Diab, shows that "the criminals, despite their professionalism, never imagined they were committing a crime in a city that had all of these capabilities, especially with regards to the surveillance cameras which are omnipresent. None of these criminals imagined that just days after committing this crime their pictures would appear on Most Wanted posters." In the Jordanian Addustour, Osama El-Sherif wrote that this was not the best of times for the Mossad which Israel has always flaunted as superior to other intelligence agencies. The operation succeeded but the price was high. What was supposed to be a clean elimination operation turned into a political nightmare and a major scandal for Israel. The last time light was shed on the Mossad, El-Sherif recalls, was when it failed to assassinate Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Jordan in 1997. In both cases Binyamin Netanyahu was Israel's prime minister. "He now is bound to take the responsibility for the failure of the Mossad, and the hunting down of its agents," El-Sherif wrote. According to El-Sherif, the biggest mistake Mossad committed in this operation is that it chose Dubai as its venue even though the country is a leader in using advanced security technology. Surveillance cameras are installed in every street, hotel and even taxis in the city that made it easier for Dubai security to trace the perpetrators. "The Mossad agents fell prey to advanced technology which their undercover agency once helped develop and use. And Israel, which considers itself a prime partner in the war against terrorism, fell prey to counter- terrorism plans which trace every traveller and keep a close record of him." In its editorial, the Saudi Al-Riyadh newspaper wrote that since the 1960s, Israeli spies have infiltrated sensitive positions in the Arab world through which they targeted officials, resistance leaders or scientists either by kidnapping or killing. Israel had also, either by relying on the Mossad or through cooperation with other international intelligence agencies, been able to occupy areas and bomb others that it deemed a security threat, the editorial wrote. Arab lands were open to Israel's operations, sending its planes to assassinate Palestinian leaderships in Lebanon, Tunisia and inside the occupied territories. Pointing to the Al-Mabhouh operation, the editorial wondered what was the benefit of exposing "the ugly face of Israel" if its allies in Europe justify its deeds and forget all about laws and human rights.
