Daily Mail report.

MI6 was tipped off that Israeli agents were going to carry out an 'overseas operation' using fake British passports, it was claimed last night.

A member of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, said the Foreign Office was also told hours before a Hamas terrorist chief was assassinated in Dubai.

The tip-off did not say who the target would be or even where the hit squad would be in action.

But the claim from a credible source that the Government had some prior knowledge of the abuse of UK passports will strengthen calls for ministers to come clean about what they knew and when.

Robert Fisk in the Independent.

Collusion. That's what it's all about. The United Arab Emirates suspect -- only suspect, mark you -- that Europe's "security collaboration" with Israel has crossed a line into illegality, where British passports (and those of other other EU nations) can now be used to send Israeli agents into the Gulf to kill Israel's enemies.

Telegraph report.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, is facing accusations of collusion with Israel after two former members of his Fatah faction were linked to the assassination of a Hamas commander in Dubai last month.

[...]

Making a potentially explosive accusation, Hamas alleged that Ahmad Hasnin and Anwar Shekhaiber are employed by a company whose owner is a top confidante of Mr Abbas, the western-backed leader of the Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank.

Guardian article.

The Mossad, like other intelligence services, tends to attract attention only when something goes wrong, or when it boasts a spectacular success and wants to send a warning signal to its enemies. Last month's assassination of a senior Hamas official in Dubai, now at the centre of a white-hot diplomatic row between Israel and Britain, is a curious mixture of both.

With its cloned foreign passports, multiple disguises, state-of-the-art communications and the murder of alleged arms smuggler Mahmoud al-Mabhouh -- one of the few elements of the plot that was not captured on the emirate's CCTV cameras -- it is a riveting tale of professional chutzpah, violence and cold calculation. And with the Palestinian Islamist movement now vowing to take revenge, it seems grimly certain that it will bring more bloodshed in its wake.

Robert Fisk in the Independent.

According to a Dubai "source" of The Independent -- readers will have to judge what this means -- the security forces of the aforesaid emirate informed a "British diplomat" in Dubai (presumably the consul, since the embassy is in the capital of the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi) of the UK passport details almost six days ago and "did not receive an appropriate reply". If this is true -- the Foreign Office will be wrathful in its denials -- then why didn't the British immediately express their outrage at the use of forged British passports and cough up details of the equally outrageous frauds a week ago? This misuse puts every British citizen at risk.

Times report.

The Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) has been brought in to investigate the use of British passports in the assassination of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

BBC report.

Passports belonging to the alleged killers of a top Hamas official in Dubai are fakes, the British and Irish governments have said.

Juan Cole comments.

His capture shows just how abject former vice president Dick Cheney's attacks on the Obama administration for its handling of terrorism are. And that Joe Biden and others kept the arrest secret, in order to allow further operations against Taliban leaders in Karachi, shows a discipline that Bush and Cheney never had. They were always happy to prematurely release details of ongoing investigations to get a political bump, even if it meant allowing terrorists to escape.

Times report.

Police in the Gulf state announced that they were hunting for 11 suspects, including a woman, for the murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a top Hamas commander, who was found dead in his Dubai hotel room on January 20.

Six of these suspects were travelling on British passports and three were carrying Irish passports, including the woman. The other two entered Dubai with German and French passports.

Craig Murray in the Daily Mail.

When I protested in public about this torture by our allies, I made myself very unpopular in Whitehall. When I protested internally about MI6 and the CIA using 'intelligence' gained by Uzbek torturers, they decided I had to go. I had stumbled across the extraordinary rendition programme, and was endangering it.

But it is difficult to sack an ambassador for opposing torture, so the Foreign Office attempted to frame me with a series of allegations. These included offering visas in exchange for sex, being an alcoholic and driving an office vehicle down a flight of stairs.

[...]

[...] as I explained in a character note to Tennant, there is a massive difference between liking a drink and being an alcoholic. There is an even greater difference between liking women and blackmailing them into sex in return for visas. I find the very idea sickening.

I was stunned that the Foreign Office tried to blackmail me. My entire faith in the British Government had been destroyed. What I could not get my head round was the fact that New Labour Ministers who supported the use of intelligence from torture, and supported the bombing of urban areas, professed moral outrage that I liked nightclubs.

BBC report.

Pune, known as the cultural and educational capital of the western Indian state of Maharashtra, is in shock at the bombing of the German Bakery.

Nafeez Ahmed responds to Christopher Hitchens' attack on Gore Vidal (and by extension on himself).

See also: Hitchens attacks Gore Vidal for being a 'crackpot' in today's Independent.

Nafeez Ahmed's blog post on the matter.

... while denigrating Gore, Hitchens displays a chronic contempt for simple matters of fact and evidence.

From the Detroit News.

The State Department didn't revoke the visa of foiled terrorism suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab because federal counterterrorism officials had begged off revocation, a top State Department official revealed Wednesday.

Patrick F. Kennedy, an undersecretary for management at the State Department, said Abdulmutallab's visa wasn't taken away because intelligence officials asked his agency not to deny a visa to the suspected terrorist over concerns that a denial would've foiled a larger investigation into al-Qaida threats against the United States.

From Dawn.

Thousands of people Saturday attended the funeral of 14 people killed in Friday's double bomb attack in Karachi, as the death toll from the assault rose overnight to 31.

Guardian article by Rizwaan Sabir.

Thornton's case highlights some problematic issues, not only for Nottingham, but for universities throughout the UK that wish to contribute to the debate on terrorism and counter-terrorism, but are afraid of becoming the subject of investigation themselves. If we are to address the problems associated with terrorism and are to have a successful, rigorous and informed counter-terrorism strategy, we need to take the threat posed to free and open inquiry at the behest of the UK's anti-terror legislation, and indeed by universities who fail to uphold traditions of academic freedom, very seriously indeed.

Independent report.

Britain's armed forces could be used on a regular basis on the streets of Britain to confront the threat of terrorism, under the terms of a strategic defence review announced yesterday.