United Arab Emirates takes tough tone with Europe

BEIRUT — The United Arab Emirates' foreign ministry issued a statement yesterday saying it is "deeply concerned" that passports from countries whose "nationals currently enjoy preferential visa waivers" were used in the recent slaying of a senior Hamas figure.

The foreign ministry statement was the most high-level comment by Dubai or UAE authorities on the Jan. 19 assassination of senior Hamas figure Mahmoud Mabhouh by Israeli spy agency Mossad.

It suggested the increasingly powerful Persian Gulf confederation is trying to put heavy pressure on European officials, whose nationals are able to freely travel through the UAE commercial powerhouses of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, to help it hunt down the alleged perpetrators of the killing. North American and European passport holders can obtain a visa to the UAE on arrival.

Meanwhile, Hamas and Mabhouh were criticized for failing to take proper security precautions.

A Hamas official told reporters this weekend the alleged Hamas weapons procurer himself breached security by calling his relatives and letting them know he was heading to the United Arab Emirates city-state.

Dubai's police chief, Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim, scolded Hamas for not giving Mabhouh a security detail or informing authorities he was coming to Dubai, one of seven states that make up the UAE.

"Mabhouh did not take basic security precautions, and if he had at least one person with him, (the suspects) would not have been able to kill him," Tamim told the Gulf News, a Dubai-based English-language daily paper. "It was clear that he had that feeling that he was anonymous and he was not careful enough, especially that the suspects took the same elevator as him and walked behind him to his room, monitoring his movements easily."

The story of Mabhouh's assassination — in which 11 people suspected of being Mossad agents and using fake European passports allegedly entered Dubai and smothered the Hamas operative with a pillow — continues to make headlines and raise questions about the future of clandestine operations.

Six of the 11 suspects carried phony British passports, and others were said to have used French, Irish or German travel documents.

British authorities said they believed information from six of its citizens' passports was copied at Israel's Ben Gurion International Airport for forgeries used in the attack, according to the Telegraph newspaper.