Geopolitics Weekly

Britain has flatly denied any foreknowledge of a Mossad plan to assassinate a top official of the Palestinian group Hamas, in Dubai, amidst angry accusations in Whitehall that Israel is seeking to deflect blame from itself by implicating others.British government sources dismissed as "nonsense" a report claiming the Israeli secret service had given the UK advanced warning of possible complications arising from the illicit use of British passports in an unspecified "overseas operation" – the murder of the Hamas commander ­Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

Officials complained of misleading briefing, apparently by pro-Israeli sources, reflected in a report in Friday's Daily Mail, which claimed that the Foreign Office was told, albeit only in general terms, of an impending assassination. The Mail story was widely reported today, both in Israel and across the Arab world.

if Israeli official involvement were proved Britain would, at the very least, expect a public apology and guarantees that passports would not be stolen again. A more extreme option could be expelling diplomats from Israel's London embassy.

The former United Nations nuclear chief, Mohammed ElBaradei, is contemplating his future after arriving back in Cairo on Friday to an excited welcome from supporters.

waved flags and held up posters saying "Yes: ElBaradei President of Egypt" and sang the national anthem.

Since leaving the Vienna-based UN agency in November he has called for political reforms in Egypt where President Hosni Mubarak has been in power for nearly 30 years. Many believe Mr Mubarak, who is 81, is preparing to hand power to his son, Gamal.

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has dropped her legal challenge against her rival's victory in Ukraine's presidential election.

International monitors deemed the vote free and fair, and Mr Yanukovych is due to be inaugurated on 25 February. Ukrainian Central Electoral Commission's declaration on Sunday that Mr Yanukovych had won the vote by a margin of 3.48%.

"Given that the court is refusing to establish the truth in essence, I withdrew my lawsuit at today's morning sitting of the Supreme Administrative Court and asked the court to stop this show, which bears no resemblance to justice," she said.

The Dutch government has collapsed over disagreements within the governing coalition on extending troop deployments in Afghanistan.

The premier had been considering a Nato request for Dutch forces to stay in Afghanistan beyond August 2010. But Labour, the second-largest coalition party, has opposed the move.

The troops should have returned home in 2008, but they stayed on because no other Nato nation offered replacements. The commitment is now due to end in August 2010. The Dutch parliament voted in October 2009 that it must definitely stop by then, although the government has yet to endorse that vote.

Dubai police chief declared that he was "99%, if not 100% certain" of Mossad's involvement, and called on Interpol to issue an arrest warrant for the Israeli spy chief, Meir Dagan

SOCA is concentrating specifically on the misuse of British passports, it is understood that MI6 is conducting a broader, parallel probe into Israeli involvement

US also looked likely to be drawn into the affair for the first time, after the Wall Street Journal reported that Mabhouh's assassins had used American-registered credit cards to buy plane tickets.

two years ago this week, when a bomb in a Pajero jeep in Damascus decapitated a man named Imad Mughniyeh. Mughniyeh was the military leader of Lebanon's Shia movement Hizbullah, an ally of Iran, and was wanted by the US, France and half a dozen other countries. Israel never went beyond cryptic nodding and winking about that killing in the heart of the Syrian capital, but it is widely believed to have been one of its most daring and sophisticated clandestine operations

The Mossad's most celebrated exploits included the abduction of the fugitive Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, who was later tried and hanged in Israel. Others were organising the defection of an Iraqi pilot who flew his MiG-21 to Israel, and support for Iraqi Kurdish rebels against Baghdad. Military secrets acquired by Elie Cohen, the infamous spy who penetrated the Syrian leadership, helped Israel conquer the Golan Heights in the 1967 Middle East war.

Over the years, the Mossad's image has been badly tarnished at home as well as abroad. It was blamed in part for failing to get wind of Egyptian-Syrian plans for the devastating attack that launched the 1973 Yom Kippur war. Critics wondered whether the spies had got their priorities right by focusing on hunting down Palestinian gunmen in the back alleys of European cities, when they should have been stealing secrets in Cairo and Damascus. The Mossad also played a significant, though still little-known, role in the covert supply of arms to Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran to help fight Saddam Hussein's Iraq, as part of the Iran-Contra scandal during Ronald Reagan's presidency.

A visit by the Dalai Lama to Washington has "seriously undermined" relations between the US and China, Beijing says.

China had earlier expressed "strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition" to the meeting with a man they see as a separatist. It said the US should "take effective steps to eradicate the malign effects".

China's Vice-Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai summoned ambassador Jon Huntsman to lodge a "solemn representation".

Iran's supreme leader has denied it is developing nuclear weapons, after a new report from the UN atomic watchdog, the IAEA, sparked an international outcry.Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said any fears were "baseless" as Iranians' beliefs "bar us from using such weapons".

Russia said it was "very alarmed" over the report while the US warned Iran it faced consequences if it failed to meet international responsibilities.

According to the unusually forthright report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran's level of co-operation with the agency was decreasing, adding to concerns about "possible military dimensions" to its nuclear programme.

Israel-based UK citizens whose names were on passports an alleged hit squad used insist they had nothing to do with killing a Hamas commander in Dubai.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Army Radio: "There is no reason to think that it was the Israeli Mossad, and not some other intelligence service or country up to some mischief." Israel had a "policy of ambiguity" on intelligence matters, he added.

UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office said it believed the passports used were fraudulent and had begun an investigation.

President Barack Obama took a major step toward improving strained ties with Syria on Tuesday, announcing his intention to reappoint a U.S.  ambassador to Damascus after a five-year absence.

The White House said Obama had nominated career diplomat Robert Ford to the post. The nomination must still be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

The United States withdrew its ambassador from Damascus in 2005 after the assassination in Beirut of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. Syria’s foes in Lebanon accused Damascus of involvement, a charge Syria denied.

Defying anger from China, US President Barack Obama on Thursday meets Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama who plans to seek his assistance in finding a solution in his homeland.

Beijing has opposed any meeting with the Dalai Lama, demanding that the United States reverse its "wrong decision" to "avoid any more damage to Sino-US relations."

Fending off domestic criticism, Obama did not meet with the Dalai Lama when he was in Washington last year in an apparent bid to set relations off on a good foot with China.     But Obama has since the start of the year gone ahead with decisions opposed by Beijing -- including approving a 6.4-billion-dollar arms package to Taiwan, which China regards as its territory awaiting reunification.

A key security operative of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas was under arrest in Syria tonight on suspicion of having helped an alleged Israeli hit squad identify Mahmoud al-Mabhouh before he was assassinated in Dubai, the Guardian has learned.

Nahro Massoud, a Hamas security official, was in detention and under interrogation in Damascus in connection with the 19 January killing, which is now widely assumed to have been mounted by Israel's Mossad secret intelligence service.

Killings of Palestinians by Israel have often involved Palestinian agents being used to identity the target.

Pakistan has confirmed that a Taliban suspect captured earlier this month is one of the organisation's top leaders, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.

US and Pakistani agents had seized Mullah Baradar in Karachi on 8 February, US officials said on Tuesday.

But a Taliban spokesman has said Mullah Baradar, thought to be their second-in-command, is free and in Afghanistan.

A man described as the top Afghan Taliban military commander and named as Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar has been captured in Pakistan, US officials say.He was seized in a US-Pakistani raid seven to nine days ago, a Pakistani military official told the BBC. The government has yet to confirm the arrest; the Taliban have denied it.

Senior US officials said Mullah Baradar was "providing intelligence".

a Taliban spokesman denied the reports, saying Mullah Baradar was still in Afghanistan actively organising the group's military and political activities.

Saudi Arabia on Monday played down suggestions it could encourage China not to block sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme by giving Beijing oil supply guarantees.

Saudi Arabia on Monday played down suggestions it could encourage China not to block sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme by giving Beijing oil supply guarantees.

Saudi Arabia on Monday played down suggestions it could encourage China not to block sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme by giving Beijing oil supply guarantees.

Mossad agents have been caught with foreign passports before, triggering diplomatic rows. In 1997, two Mossad agents using forged Canadian passports were arrested in Amman after trying to assassinate Khalid Meshal, a Hamas official who is now the movement's leader, by spraying poison into his ear.

Two suspected Mossad agents were jailed for six months in 2004 in New Zealand for trying to falsely obtain a New Zealand passport . They were caught when an immigration official noticed a passport applicant was speaking with an American or Canadian accent.Helen Clark, the then New Zealand prime minister, criticised Israel for behaving in a way "unacceptable internationally by any country".

On Monday Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister said imposing more sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme would not be a quick enough solution.

Prince Saud al-Faisal said the threat posed by Iran demanded a "more immediate solution" than sanctions.

On Tuesday, Turkey's foreign minister is due in Iran aiming to mediate.

Six members of an 11-strong hit squad suspected of killing a senior Hamas military commander in Dubai entered the country using British passports, police said last night.

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, 49, was killed on 20 January in his hotel room, hours after arriving in the state. Last month Hamas claimed Israeli agents assassinated Mabhouh, who was wanted for the killing of two Israeli soldiers in 1989.

11 people, including one woman, were wanted over the killing. He said all suspects had European passports. In addition to the six British passport holders, three were carrying Irish passports and the two others were from France and Germany

The European Commission has condemned Libya's decision to stop issuing visas to the many Europeans whose countries are in the Schengen border-free zone.

The Swiss ban is said to include Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his family.

The Libyan-Swiss row dates back to July 2008, when Col Gaddafi's son Hannibal and daughter-in-law were arrested in Switzerland. The charges, of mistreating two domestic employees, were later dropped. Libya then halted oil exports to Switzerland, withdrew billions of dollars of assets from Swiss banks and put two Swiss businessmen working in Libya on trial for visa violations and other offences.

The COIN gurus recommend early recognition of the problem and a harsh decisive response. Cox concludes that the Iranian government, taking advantage of its authoritarian position, is employing the recommendations of these Western theorists and to good effect.

First, the regime appears to have developed good intelligence on the opposition. The opposition movement appears broad, but scattered, disorganized, and probably lacking many internal security measures. The security services have likely had an easy time penetrating the movement's leadership network and monitoring its electronic communications.

the Iranian government, in accordance with Western COIN theorists, has rapidly and efficiently responded to the embryonic insurgency. It has penetrated the protest movement, arrested the movement's organizers and propagandists, and achieved dominance over information and communications.