He said the number of people involved in the operation indicates that it may have been put together in a rush. They then had to resort to tricking al-Mabhouh into opening his door to them after he returned. Some news reports say the assassins entered the room while the victim was out and waited for him to return, while others say they were thwarted from entering the room when a hotel guest stepped off the elevator on al-Mabhouh’s floor. Investigators believe the assassins tried to reprogram the electronic lock on al-Mabhouh’s door to gain entry. Note: Please limit comments to the security considerations and lessons of the assassination, and steer clear of the politics.ĮDITED TO ADD (2/19): Interesting analysis: Is it really that easy to do that to a hotel room door? I wonder if any of those fake passports had RFID chips?ĭubai’s police chief said six of the suspects had British passports, three were Irish, one French and one German.Īnd Mabhouh was discovered in his room, the door locked and barred from the inside. Given that they didn’t know the hotel until they got there, what kind of general hotel-key reprogramming devices do they have? The video shows evidence of them trying to reprogram the door. How did they get into Mabhouh’s hotel room. It’s unusual to reserve a particular room, and not unreasonable to think that the hotel desk staff might wonder who else is booked nearby. That seems like the part of the plan most likely to arouse suspicion. The team booked the hotel room directly across the hallway from Mabhouh. How much of the operation was preplanned, and how much was created on the fly? Was that why there were so many people involved? The team didn’t know what hotel Mabhouh would be staying in, nor whether he would be alone or with others. And the professionalism leads pretty much everyone to suspect Mossad. Read the whole thing-and watch ( in three parts) this video compilation of all the CCTV cameras in the hotels and airprort. They entered the room using copies of keys they had somehow acquired. The Dubai authorities claim there were two teams: one carried out surveillance of the target, while the other-which appears to be a group of younger men, at least as far as the camera shots show-carried out the killing.Ĭontrary to reports, the squad did not break into Mabhouh’s hotel room, nor did they knock on the door. To co-ordinate their movements on the ground, the team used discreet, sophisticated short-range communication devices as they tracked their victim. However, Dubai police traced a high volume of calls and text messages between three phones carried by the assassins and four numbers in Austria where a command centre had apparently been established. Throughout the operation, none of the suspects made a direct call to any another. The bald Daveron donned a dark wig and glasses, while Folliard appears to have removed a blonde wig to reveal dark hair. Both switched hotels that afternoon and dressed smartly to pose as hotel staff. The group switched hotels several times and wore disguises including false beards and wigs, while surveillance teams rotated in pairs through the hotel lobby, never hanging around for too long and paying for everything in cash.įolliard and another member of the party carrying an Irish passport in the name of Kevin Daveron were operating as spotters on the second floor of the hotel when the murder was committed. Security footage of the killers’ movements during the afternoon, released by police in Dubai yesterday, underlines the professionalism of the operation. The January 19th assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh reads like a very professional operation:
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