Over the past few days the number of suspects in the Dubai assassination of an Hamas murderer has jumped to 27, two of whom the Dubai authorities traced to an escape to Iran. Dubai officials are now quoted as having offered up at least four different accounts and contradictory accounts of the means of the assassination adding to the notion that this is looking more like Murder on the Orient Express than some streamlined "Mossad" operation as they first claimed.

"Hamas suspects the security forces of an Arab state were behind the assassination of a senior group operative in Dubai earlier this year, the Al-Quds Al-Araby daily reported on Tuesday. Mahmoud Nasser, a member of Hamas' political bureau, told the newspaper that slain commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was likely being tracked by agents from Jordan and Egypt prior to the January 19 killing."