JERUSALEM, Feb 17, (Agencies): Israel’s foreign minister said on Wednesday the use of the identities of foreign-born Israelis by a hit squad suspected of killing a Hamas militant in Dubai did not prove the Mossad spy agency assassinated him.
“There is no reason to think that it was the Israeli Mossad, and not some other intelligence service or country up to some mischief,” Avigdor Lieberman, asked about the operation and alleged passport subterfuge, told Army Radio.
But Lieberman did not deny outright Israeli involvement in the killing of Hamas’s Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel last month, saying Israel has a “policy of ambiguity” on intelligence matters and there was no proof it was behind the assassination.
Men with the same names as seven of the 11 suspects whose European passport photos were distributed by Dubai live in Israel, and those reached by reporters insisted their identities had been stolen and noted the pictures were not a match. Six of the men are Britons who immigrated to Israel. The seventh is an American-Israeli, whose name Dubai said was on a German passport used by one of the assassins.
Some Israeli commentators on intelligence matters suggested the Mossad may have blundered — if it carried out the attack and had hoped to keep its involvement secret — by using the identities of people who could be traced back to Israel.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas has blamed Israel for the assassination, and Dubai police have said they could not rule out Israeli involvement.
A security source in Israel said the target, Mabhouh, played a key role in smuggling Iranian-funded arms to Islamist militants in the Gaza Strip. Hamas confirmed the information.
Dubai said it issued international arrest warrants for all suspects, who also include Irish and French passport holders. A government source said six other people, not yet identified, were also believed to be involved.
As the mystery over suspects’ identities deepened, Britain and Ireland said they believed the British and Irish passports used by the alleged killers were fake.
A source close to the French intelligence services told Reuters a French passport which Dubai said was used in the operation had a valid number but incorrect name.

“It was a very good fake,” the source said.
Austria’s Interior Ministry said it had launched an investigation into the suspected use of at least seven mobile phones with pre-paid Austrian chips by Mabhouh’s killers.
In the radio interview, Lieberman shrugged off any prospect of diplomatic problems with Britain over suspicions a Mossad team had used counterfeit British passports.
“I think Britain recognises that Israel is a responsible country and that our security activity is conducted according to very clear, cautious and responsible rules of the game. Therefore we have no cause for concern,” he said.
Hit squads dispatched by Mossad have used foreign passports in the past, notably in 1997 when agents entered Jordan on Canadian passports and bungled an attempt to kill Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal with poison.
In 1987, Britain protested to Israel about what London called the misuse by Israeli authorities of forged British passports and said it received assurances steps had been taken to prevent future occurrences.
Investigation
Britain’s prime minister pledged on Wednesday a full investigation into how faked British passports were linked to the killing of a top Hamas man in Dubai as Israel remained ambiguous over speculation that its storied Mossad secret service was behind the murder.
The killing of top Hamas militant Mahmud al-Mabhuh while on an apparent weapons purchasing trip last month has widely been blamed on the Mossad. However, no evidence has yet linked the agency, which is keeping mum on the affair in line with tradition.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged a “full investigation” after it emerged that the assassins appeared to have stolen the identities of at least seven Israeli dual nationals, six of them British passport holders.
“We have got to carry out a full investigation into this. The British passport is an important document that has got to be held with care,” Brown told London’s LBC Radio.
“The evidence has got to be assembled about what has actually happened and how it happened and why it happened and it is necessary for us to accumulate that evidence before we can make statements.”
Mezies Campbell, a member of the foreign affairs committee of the House of Commons, said that “given the current speculation, the Israeli government has some explaining to do.”
“If the Israeli government was party to behaviour of this kind, it would be a serious violation of trust between nations,” said Campbell.
    A senior British lawmaker called Wednesday for Israel’s ambassador to London to be summoned to the Foreign Office to explain how fake British passports were linked to the killers of a top Hamas figure.
Campbell said answers were needed over “speculation” about the involvement of Israel’s Mossad secret service in the killing in Dubai last month.
“If legitimate British passport holders were put at risk it would be a disgrace..
Arrested
Dubai police questioned two Palestinians on Tuesday in connection with the murder of a top Hamas militant, after naming an 11-member hit team travelling on what are increasingly looking like fake European passports
The pair, both residents of the United Arab Emirates, had “fled to Jordan” after Mahmud al-Mabhuh was found dead in a Dubai hotel room last month, police chief Dahi Khalfan told AFP.
They were extradited from Jordan “three days ago,” Khalfan said, adding there was “strong suspicion” that one of the two had met a member of the suspected hit team before the assassination.
Khalfan announced on Monday that police were hunting six British passport holders, three with Irish passports, including a woman, and the holders of a German and a French passport, all of whom had managed to leave the UAE.
A spy novel-worthy police narrative about the slaying of a Hamas commander brought uneasy questions for Dubai authorities Tuesday as their account of a crack hit squad from Europe ran into serious challenges from Britain, Ireland and Germany.
At least four people who live in Israel share names with suspects identified by Dubai police investigating the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Three of the four said they were not the people whose photos were made public by Dubai; a daughter of the fourth said the allegations were a mistake.
Even so, the purported link to Israel was likely to encourage Hamas and others to press their claims that the Mossad secret service masterminded the slaying.
Another twist added to the intrigue. Officials outside Dubai said at least two Palestinians linked to the case were in Dubai custody, leaving Hamas and its Western-backed Palestinian rivals trading bitter accusations.
Dubai authorities described an 11-member team that swooped into the Gulf city-state last month on a mission to kill al-Mabhouh and then fanned out with clockwork precision to Europe, Asia and South Africa in less than 24 hours.
Dubai’s police chief, Lt Gen Dahi Khalfan Tamim, ran through the details at a news conference Monday, describing suspects who donned fake beards or wigs and shadowed al-Mabhouh so closely they even rode in the same elevator with him at a luxury hotel.
The wanted list was topped by an alleged mastermind carrying a French passport and others traveling on European passports: six British, three Irish and a German.
But it quickly came under dispute.
Ireland said three suspects’ names do not appear on any passport registry. Britain and Germany said the passport details cited by Dubai do not appear genuine. The consul-general of France in Dubai, Nada Yafi, declined to comment on the case.
One of the British suspects — identified as Melvyn Adam Mildiner — told The Associated Press the passport photo on the Dubai wanted flier is not him but the passport number was correct.
“Wow, I didn’t know that (the number) was out. That’s horrid,” said Mildiner, who has dual British-Israeli citizenship and was reached by phone in Israel.
“That is a bit bizarre,” he said, adding: “I have never been to Dubai.”
At least three other people with the same names as the alleged suspects — identified by Dubai police as Britons Paul John Keeley and Stephen Daniel Hodes, and German passport holder Michael Bodenheimer — live in Israel, according to Israel’s Channel 2 TV.