Mr Mabhouh died in his hotel room in Dubai last month
Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni has applauded the controversial killing of a Hamas commander in a Dubai hotel by suspected Israeli agents.
"The fact that a terrorist was killed, and it doesn't matter if it was in Dubai or Gaza, is good news to those fighting terrorism," she said.
It is thought to be the first time a top Israeli has made such a comment.
Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was found dead in his room on 20 January, having been electrocuted and suffocated.
His alleged killers used fake British, Irish, German and French passports, according to the authorities in Dubai, which released pictures of the suspects, none of whom were caught.
Mr Mabhouh was one of the founders of Hamas's military wing.
The Israeli secret service Mossad has been widely accused of carrying out the killing but Israel has repeatedly asserted there is no proof its agents were involved.
'Fighting terrorism'
Mrs Livni, the former foreign minister who leads the parliamentary opposition for the Kadima party, did not indicate who was behind the killing.
"The entire world must support those fighting terrorism," she told a Jewish conference in Jerusalem.
"Any comparison between terrorism and those fighting it is immoral."
The current Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, responded to allegations of a Mossad plot last week by saying: "Israel never responds, never confirms and never denies."
Dubai security cameras picked up 18 members of what local police believe was a hit team.
Diplomatic tension between Western states and Israel has grown over the killing.
By Wil Haygood Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, January 1, 2010; C07
Virginia socialites Tareq and Michaele Salahi's crashing of President Obama's first state dinner in the White House on Nov. 24 prompted a ripple of concern among African Americans nationwide that lingers still.
"You are talking probably 100 percent concern about the president's safety from my listeners," said Joe Madison, known as "the Black Eagle," who hosts a popular nationwide radio program that attracts mostly African American listeners. "People are worried. My callers think there's not the intensity to protect this president given his unique history. It shouldn't be business as usual."
On the streets of Washington last week, the concern was palpable.
Joseine Applewhite, a 40-year-old legal assistant from the District, said she is worrying about Obama's safety. "I think the Secret Service needs to step up their game a little bit," she said. "After all, the first lady was there on the night of the state dinner, and I believe the kids were also. I think a lot of black folks are angry about it. And why weren't the Salahis arrested? Black folks are asking themselves that question. I am just upset about all of it."
Doug Pierce, 38, who was touring downtown Washington with his family from Cleveland, Tenn., where he works as a cook, also questioned whether the Secret Service is doing an adequate job.
"They allowed that couple to get in there, so obviously someone's not doing their job," Pierce said, standing near the White House gates. "You can't help worrying about the president. He's a black man, and it's probably a lot of people out in the world trying to get to him."
* * *
A poll conducted Dec. 9 by Fox News/Opinion Dynamics showed that 48 percent of black respondents were just somewhat or not at all confident in the Secret Service's ability to protect the president, compared with 37 percent who answered the same question in a poll conducted Jan. 9, less than two weeks before Obama's inauguration. The comparable figures for white respondents were 37 percent and 32 percent.
Many blacks as well as whites think Obama is in greater danger of assassination than some previous presidents because of his historic role. There are also some blacks who suspect -- rightly or wrongly -- that the Secret Service won't work as hard to protect a black president, a point of view that has its roots in the nation's complicated racial history.
Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan, who recently was called before a congressional committee worried about the security breach at the White House, said the agency is well aware of this suspicion but disagrees with it. The Secret Service is committing more resources to the security of the first family than it ever has, Sullivan said.
"Regardless of who the president is, we know there's always someone out there who wants to harm the president," Sullivan said. "The fact that he's African American has never been lost on us."
Sullivan noted that citizens have been quick to contact the agency to report worries. "We want the public to be engaged," he said in an interview at his H Street office. "We know the consequences of what could happen if we don't do our job right."
Sullivan said the agency put corrective measures in place following the state dinner incident. "Nobody has beaten up on us more than we ourselves have," he said. "But we have to move on. We don't have the luxury of sitting back, and we are moving forward. Our people are focused."
But such sentiments have been met with skepticism among many African Americans, who have long suspected that law enforcement at all levels of government is tainted by racism. That includes the 6,000-employee Secret Service, which is embroiled in a class-action lawsuit filed by black agents who allege discrimination. (Ed Donovan, a spokesman for the agency, said it could not respond to questions about ongoing litigation.)
"When J. Edgar Hoover was running the FBI, the image of law enforcement in the black community was at its lowest," said Ronald Walters, professor emeritus of government and politics at the University of Maryland. "Hoover had a feeling that African American leaders were not as patriotic as he thought they should be. He systematically went after them."
One of Hoover's longtime targets was the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., father of the modern-day civil rights movement. Hoover had King's conversations wiretapped and spread rumors about him that many would come to find repellent.
"It took a long time and a lot of experience," added Walters, "for African Americans to develop the attitude that domestic security services were no friend of the African American community." Incidents of police brutality during and after the civil rights movement haven't helped, he said.
Walters said he and other blacks were alarmed recently at the sight of armed protesters in Phoenix and Portsmouth, N.H., near where the president was talking about his proposed changes in the health-care system. "Look at all those people who showed up with guns," Walters says of the Phoenix incident. "You just couldn't imagine Ronald Reagan speaking within 1,000 yards and there being people with guns, and the Secret Service or law enforcement not doing anything about it."
The Secret Service says the incidents in both Arizona and New Hampshire did not catch the agency off guard, explaining that it could not trample over local jurisdictions that allow for the open display of firearms. "Those people were in very strict parameters of being able to carry a weapon," Donovan said. "If they were going to impact our route of the motorcade, they were going to be removed. Part of the myth out there is that they were in close proximity to our routes. We would not drive a protectee near someone with a weapon."
What is the reality of the physical threat against Obama? It's hard to pin down.
Presidents typically receive about 3,000 threats a year, Secret Service experts have said, although the agency refused to discuss specific numbers.
In strategic budget documents, officials acknowledged that the threat environment was especially high last year -- because of factors including wars overseas, domestic tensions and Obama's history-making presidential bid -- and is expected to remain high.
While hostility directed at former president George W. Bush and vice president Dick Cheney tended to be associated with U.S. policies abroad, antipathy toward Obama emanates from domestic extremists, Secret Service officials said. He received the earliest protection for a presidential candidate in history-- less than a hundred days after he announced -- because of threats; and at the most visible moments of his trek to the White House, threat levels reached historic levels, government officials said. However, the number of threats has since fallen back to levels seen by Bush and Bill Clinton at this point in their terms.
But threats are only one barometer of security concerns -- and a poor one in some ways, Secret Service officials said. Research into dozens of individuals who have actually attacked presidents in recent decades shows nearly all were previously unknown to the Secret Service.
* * *
African Americans have expressed concern about the safety of other black public figures aspiring to the presidency. There were concerns about Jesse Jackson's safety during his two presidential campaigns. Alma Powell, wife of Republican star and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, who had been wooed to seek his party's nomination, famously said she preferred her husband didn't run, fearing for his safety. Powell chose not to run.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who sits on the House Homeland Security Committee and is in contact with the Secret Service on security issues, says blacks have worried about Obama's safety because they still vividly recall the mourning in the aftermath of King's assassination and that reverberates on the federal holiday commemorating King's birth.
Norton said she was as shocked as anybody when the Salahis were able to gain access to the White House uninvited. "As an elected official, I go to the White House quite often," she said. "I never expected anybody to get past the palace gates without ID!"
Even so, she said, "I have every reason to believe this is not your grandfather's Secret Service. I have no doubt that the Secret Service has a whole new game book when it comes to Obama. They just didn't have it when it came to getting inside the White House itself."
It would appear that Obama shares Norton's confidence.
"Three years ago, the men and women of the Secret Service undertook an historic mission -- to put their lives on the line to protect a presidential candidate and his family, earlier than ever before," White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said in a statement. "Every morning, President Obama wakes up grateful for their exceptional commitment to their job and their service to the country."
MANILA — The police in Indonesia said Saturday that they had foiled plans by an Islamist group to assassinate President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, but they declined to confirm news reports that they had killed Southeast Asia’s most wanted terrorism suspect in a separate raid.
A leading expert on terrorism, Sidney Jones of the International Crisis Group, said she doubted local reports that the terrorism suspect, Noordin Muhammad Top, had been killed in a 16-hour raid on a militant hide-out outside Jakarta.
Police officials said that they could not immediately confirm whether the person who had been killed was Mr. Noordin, and that they had sent a body to Jakarta for DNA testing.
As confused and contradictory reports emerged, it remained unclear whether Mr. Noordin had been in the house at the time of the raid, whether he had escaped or whether he had possibly been arrested beforehand.
“What we do know is that the police intercepted this likely attack, and they get incredible kudos for that,” Ms. Jones said, referring to the assassination attempt.
But as to the raid on the house outside of Jakarta, she said, “What I’m pretty convinced of is that the person inside the house was not Noordin Top and the person who was killed was not Noordin Top.”
The National Police chief, Gen. Bambang Hendarso Danuri, tried to dampen the rumors.
“We could not yet disclose the identity of the killed man,” he said at a news conference. “After the DNA test, we will announce it, based on facts, not based on speculation.”
The two suspects killed in the second raid, in the West Java town of Bekasi, were believed to be linked to Mr. Noordin.
General Hendarso said an accomplice had told the police that two would-be suicide bombers were planning to detonate explosives in a truck at the president’s home this month. He said a truck was found rigged with explosives, along with bomb-making material.
He said the location was significant “because it is situated just a 12-minutes drive from the president’s residence.
“Our president was a target,” he said.
The president told reporters he had been briefed about a counterterrorism operation by the police, though he did not mention Mr. Noordin.
“I extend my highest gratitude and respect to the police for their brilliant achievement in this operation,” he said.
With the disarray and decline of the region’s leading Islamist terrorist group, Jemaah Islamiyah, Mr. Noordin had come to be seen as the region’s most dangerous militant, operating a splinter faction that claimed direct links to Al Qaeda, Ms. Jones said.
“There is no question that he was involved with the bombings in Jakarta,” Ms. Jones said. “He is certainly the person who has masterminded every major attack in Indonesia beginning with the Marriott Hotel bombings in 2003.”
A Malaysian citizen, Mr. Noordin claimed in a video in 2005 to be Al Qaeda’s representative in Southeast Asia and said he was carrying out attacks on Western civilians to avenge Muslim deaths in Afghanistan.
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