They done fucked up. Not only did they get busted with good policework by the Dubai cops, it turns out they stole the IDs from Israelis with dual citizenship. Now the Israeli press is having a field day. From the AFP:
As the Israelis struggled to come to terms with their newfound fame as international “assassins,” the Israeli press skewered the operation that it has widely laid at the feet of Mossad.
“A successful operation? Not so sure,” read a headline in the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot daily. “Cracks are appearing more and more in this operation which at first looked like a grand success.”
Wrote Maariv: “Whoever assassinated senior Hamas figure Mahmud al-Mabhuh is in trouble… The intelligence was of high quality, the implementation was polished, the assassins entered and left Dubai safely, everything went like clockwork. Unfortunately, so did the security cameras.”
A columnist in the left-leaning Haaretz called for the resignation of Mossad chief Meir Dagan over the affair and one in the right-wing Israel Hayom questioned the wisdom of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu having extended Dagan’s mandate to a fifth year.
The world’s most over-esteemed intelligence service hasn’t dared assassinate Arab leaders in Western Europe, the US, or even Latin America since the days of Operation Damocles. What the hell made them think Dubai, of all points in the Arab world, was somewhere they could somehow get away with the same thing that brought down Golda Meir’s government?
