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Photo: David Lisbona

Dubai is a very curious place. It is run by a very rich sheik who allows very bad things to happen in his glittering little Sheikdom and always gets away with it. It is the kind of place where they give expensive cars away at airport raffles, AQ Khan buys and sells nuclear weapons plans and components almost openly, and the Dubai authorities make few arrests.

Intelligence services operate in enormous numbers with the license to steal, kill, frame and the local cops take no action until after the deed is done. They import hookers from Eastern Europe by the thousands, and they have a special parking lot for all the Lamborghinis and Ferraris cracked up on Saturday night. Dubai is like Las Vegas with much less restraint.

People who travel through Dubai sometimes never make it home. When former FBI agent and counterfeit cigarette investigator Bob Levinson stopped by to say hello to an old colleague in 2006, he went to nearby Kish Island and was never seen again by his seven children. Dubai is a dangerous place for innocents. Dubai is to 2010 what Casablanca was to 1941, except Dubai has a higher vacancy, foreclosure and execution rate. It is where the world’s mobs come to play and collect.

My friend and colleague Jim Grady interviewed some spooks for a piece he did on Politics Daily. The basic conclusion was that last month’s hit on the head of the Hamas military wing was an Israeli job, executed with the panache and nerve on which Mossad built its reputation.

Maybe Jim’s experts are right. But I am hearing a different story that says more about a split between the two leading political factions of Palestine, Fatah and Hamas, and how smaller parties and outsiders are exploiting the split. It is true the current Israeli government is not exactly devoted to the peace negotiations the Obama administration has been pushing. Because the electorate in Palestine has split its vote between Yassir Arafat’s old political party (Fatah: The Palestine Liberation Front) and the harder line Hamas, the split some say has given Israel’s conservative leadership the opportunity to make mischief and delay a peace deal. Add to that the numerous other groups like Islamic Jihad, the Palestinian Peoples Party and an endless list of angry splinter groups; and the number of potential suspects becomes daunting.

My sources in Hezbollah suggest that the assassination may bolster the sentiment that Fatah’s military wing conspires with the Israelis against the harder line Hamas.  That is an idea Hamas would like to use locally for political advantage. Another Hezbollah source suggested that Islamic Jihad – with ties to Al Qaeda and rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood – may have played a role in the killing to try and end the peace talks and make inroads into Hamas support. Adding to that possibility is the fact that fake Irish and British passports – purportedly used by the hit team –  have been used by Islamic Jihad and Al Qaeda in the past.

The case for Mossad’s involvement is that some passports used names of innocent British citizens now living in Israel. This would be unusually sloppy tradecraft for Mossad and the kind of mistake Israeli intelligence does not make very often. Another possibility is a power move inside Hamas. It would not be the first time we have seen such behavior among fellow terrorists. Many suspect that Osama bin Laden took full control of Al Qaeda in such a manner.

Hamas military commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was smothered to death in his Dubai hotel room. The Dubai cops say that video footage they put together shows the victim was stalked by a hit team dispatched by Israel. Dubai has cameras and informants everywhere. “What is ludricous,” according to a former Dubai Chief of Station for the CIA, “is that Dubai security wasn’t monitoring every call and visitor that came near this guy. The Dubai authorities are lying and most likely had been cleared to allow the executive action before the pillow touched his face.”

As any visitor to Dubai can tell you, the country is Stalinist in the way local informant networks work. If the Dubai cops missed something, chances are the CIA, SAVAMA, BND, French Intelligence, SVR and MI6 would have been warned. My former CIA station chief friend said, “The idea that 10 men and one woman who came in using wigs and other disguises to carry out the killing were not picked by other intelligence services who monitor those video links is impossible.”

Israel's Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, was adamant that the videotapes presented by the Dubai police provided "no reason to think that it was the Israeli Mossad and not some other service or country up to some mischief." The head of the Dubai authorizes claimed “there was a 99 percent chance" that Mossad was responsible for Mabhouh's death. Dubai has issued arrest warrants for the suspects. The police issued a statement Wednesday that said two of 15 new suspects in the murder, identified as Nicole Sandra McCabe and Adam Marcus Korman and carrying Australian passports, left Dubai on a ship bound for Iran, hardly a favored destination for Mossad agents. The other suspects traveled by plane to European and Asian countries, according to the Dubai authorities.

Perhaps the Dubai cops will be able to pin the real estate collapse and closure of the tallest building in the world on a foreign intelligence agency as well. Perhaps there is more videotape to come.