Hamas says 'Arabs may have killed Mabhouh'

From JPOST 04/03/2010:

... sources from [Hamas] charged on Tuesday that certain Arab countries may have been complicit in the [assassination of Hamas terrorist Mahmoud al-Mabhouh on Jan. 19 in Dubai]. ...before the killing, Jordanian and Egyptian intelligence agencies had tracked Mabhouh.

The original report from Al-Quds Al-Arabi, cited by Reuters, quoted Damascus-based Hamas official Mahmoud Nassar, Mabhouh’s right-hand man, as saying that there was evidence that Mabhouh had been targeted by moderate Arab countries.

Jordan and Egypt had helped the Mossad track Mabhouh, Nassar charged, because he previously handled sensitive information concerning the activities of Hamas as well as other Islamist operations. Nassar added that the killing may have been carried out by spies either from the Palestinian Authority or from an Arab intelligence service earlier than planned. The paper added that Nassar was in charge of Hamas’s ties with Iran.

Al-Quds Al-Arabi noted that Nasser had also worked reportedly closely with Mabhouh.

...Mabhouh “never stopped thinking about how to fight the occupation by supplying quality weapons to the Palestinian fighters,” Nassar said. “He participated with me in searching for weapons.”

Mabhouh and Nassar fled Gaza in 1990, after capturing and killing two IDF soldiers, Pvt. Ilan Sa’adon and Sgt. Avi Sasportas, in separate incidents the previous year.

Nassar described Mabhouh’s celebration after one of the murders, as he stood by the soldier’s corpse. “Aboul Abed [Mabhouh] stood on the last body and raised his hands to the sky and said, ‘Praise God who honored me with capturing and killing him,’” Nassar said...