Last month’s daring assassination of a Hamas senior terrorist in Dubai may spark a combined Hizbullah-Hamas revenge attack against Israel. Hamas has blamed Israel for the murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who stated on a video taped before his death that he was involved in the murder of two Israeli soldiers in 1989.
Hizbullah has blamed Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency for the assassination of its mastermind terrorist Imad Mughniyeh, who was blown up by a car bomb in Damascus two years ago this Friday. Israeli security officials are prepared for Hizbullah, possibly with help by Hamas, to use the occasion to strike at Jews.
Ten failed revenge attacks
Hizbullah has made at least ten unsuccessful attempts to carry out revenge attacks against Israelis since Mughniyeh was killed.
Iran, which sponsors and controls Hamas, also has blamed Israel for the car bombing of a Tehran physics professor last month, although activists against the Iranian regime have said the government is trying to camouflage its own execution of the victim, who previously had spoken against the government.
Details of the killing of al-Mabhouh assassination still are not clear. Medical analyses have found traces of poison in his blood, and Hamas has charged Mossad agents with harming him with electric shocks and then injecting him with a heart attack-inducing drug.
Al-Mabhouh arrived in the United Arab Emirates from Syria on a flight last month. In a video aired on al-Jazeera television two weeks after he was assassinated, he was seen describing the murders of soldiers Ilan Saadon and Avi Sasportas. He also said he felt honored to die as a martyr.