Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) | intelNews.org

Hamas accuses Mossad of assassinating Palestinian engineer in Malaysia

April 23, 2018 by Joseph Fitsanakis 1 Comment

Fadi al-Batsh Fadi Albatsh Militants in the Gaza Strip have accused Israel of assassinating a Palestinian engineer based in Malaysia, who was shot dead on Saturday by unknown assailants riding motorcycles. The victim has been identified as Dr. Fadi M. al-Batsh, 35, from the town of Jabalia in the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian enclave controlled by the militant group Hamas. Al-Batsh is believed to have completed undergraduate and Master’s degrees in electrical engineering at the Islamic University of Gaza. In 2011 he enrolled as a PhD student at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, from where he subsequently received his doctorate in electrical engineering. He was then employed as a lecturer by the University of Kuala Lumpur’s British Malaysian Institute. The Institute is located in the Jalan Gombak neighborhood of the Malaysian capital, where al-Batsh lived with his wife and three children. Some reports from Israel said that al-Batsh worked on drone technology and that he had authored scientific articles on the development of drone technology, as well as on the technical specifications of transmitters used to remotely control drones.

Local reports said al-Batsh was gunned down at around 6:00 a.m. on Saturday morning as he was walking from his home to a nearby mosque for early-morning prayers. Footage taken from nearby security cameras shows that al-Batsh was shot by two men riding on a large BMW 1100cc motorcycle, who waited for him to arrive at the scene for at least 20 minutes before opening fire. Malaysian police said the Palestinian man was pronounced dead at the scene, having sustained wounds from 14 bullets in the chest and head. A subsequent report by local police authorities said the incident was being treated as a “targeted killing”, not as a terrorist attack, because the assassins appeared to focus solely on al-Batsh while ignoring several bystanders that were present.

Shortly after al-Batsh’s killing some reports identified him as a relative of Khaled al-Batsh, a senior official in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. A subsequent statement published by Hamas-affiliated media said al-Batsh was a commander in the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing. The militant group described him as a “loyal member” and called him a “shahid” (martyr), who was “assassinated by the hand of treachery”. The Gaza-based group also vowed retaliation against Israel and the Mossad intelligence agency.

Malaysian authorities said on Sunday that they did not rule out anything, including the possibility that al-Batsh may have been killed by militants belonging to the Islamic State. Malaysia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, said that the possible involvement of “foreign agents” in al-Batsh’s killing was also being looked at. He added that the two main suspects behind the killing were believed to be “white, European-looking men”. On Monday, Malaysian police released facial composites of the two suspects, based on eyewitness testimonies. An accompanying press release said the two suspects were “around 1.80 meters tall, well built, had fair complexions, and were believed to be of Middle Eastern or Western descent”.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 23 April 2018 | Permalink | Research credit: R.B. and C.F.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with assassinations, Fadi al-Batsh, Fadi Albatsh, Fadi M. Albatsh, Gaza Strip, Hamas, Israel, Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Mossad, News

Did North Korean leader’s brother meet with a US spy before he was assassinated?

May 26, 2017 by Joseph Fitsanakis Leave a comment

Kim Jong-nam murder The exiled half-brother of North Korea’s leader, who was assassinated in Malaysia in February, is thought to have met with a man believed to be an American intelligence officer shortly before he was killed, according to reports. Kim Jong-nam the grandson of North Korea’s founder Kim Il-Sung, died after two women approached him at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport and splashed his face with liquid poison on February 13 of this year. Kim was about to board a flight to Macau, where he had been living in self-exile with his family since 2007. His relations with his brother, North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, and the regime in Pyongyang, were adversarial, and some suggest that he had survived at least one assassination attempt in the past.

According to Malaysian investigators, who have been probing Kim’s murder, the estranged half-brother of the North Korean dictator arrived in Kuala Lumpur from Macau on February 6, a week before he was killed there. Two days later, on February 8, he traveled to Langkawi, a resort island in the Andaman Sea, located 20 miles from Malaysia’s mainland coast, near the Thai border. According to the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, a day after his arrival at Langkawi, Kim met with a man believed by Malaysian authorities to be in the employment of American intelligence. The man, who has not been named, is reportedly middle-aged, Korean-American with United States citizenship, and lives in Bangkok. The Osaka-based paper said that Malaysian police have accessed footage from the Langkawi hotel’s security cameras, which show Kim and the American man enter a hotel suite and staying there for nearly two hours before departing.

The newspaper further claims that Malaysian counterintelligence has been tracking the American man each time he has entered Malaysia from Thailand for quite some time, believing him to be a case officer. It is also thought that Kim had met the same man in Malaysia “several times in the past”, said Asahi Shimbun. The paper further states that Malaysian investigators believe the meeting between Kim and the American man was the reason behind North Korea’s decision to kill him. The American man reportedly left Malaysia on February 13, the same day Kim was assassinated in Kuala Lumpur.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 26 May 2017 | Permalink

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with assassinations, Kim Jong-nam, Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Langkawi (Malaysia), Malaysia, News, North Korea, suspicious deaths, Thailand, United States

North Korean leader’s half-brother killed by female assassins in Malaysia

February 15, 2017 by Joseph Fitsanakis Leave a comment

DPRK assassin The half-brother of North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un has been killed in an audacious attack in Malaysia, reportedly by two female assassins who used a poisonous substance to murder him. Kim Jong-nam, was the eldest son of Kim Jong-il, and grandson of Kim Il-Sung, who founded the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in 1948. However, he left the country in 2007, reportedly after it became clear that his younger half-brother, Kim Jong-un, was the regime’s preferred successor to his father, Kim Jong-il.

Since that time, it is believed that the self-exiled Kim split his time between Singapore and China, and that he had a residence in the former Portuguese colony of Macau. It is also believed that he employed a variety of passports, including South Korean, Portuguese and Swiss, some of which were reputed to be forgeries. Even though Kim kept a relatively low profile in the past decade, relations between him and the North Korean regime were adversarial. He made occasional comments to the press that were critical of the government in Pyongyang, and at times criticized his half-brother’s character and actions. Intelligence sources in South Korea claimed that the DPRK tried to kill him at least once in the past.

It appears that Pyongyang may have finally managed to kill Kim on Monday morning, at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Malaysia’s main international flight hub and one of Southeast Asia’s largest. The attack is believed to have taken place at 9:00 a.m. at the airport’s economy class terminal, where Kim was waiting to board a 10:00 a.m. flight to Macau. According to Malaysian news media, Kim was approached by two women, one of whom attacked him from behind. The female suspect reportedly covered Kim’s face with a “cloth laced with a poisonous liquid” that burned his eyes. A frantic Kim managed to run away and alert an airport employee, who called an ambulance. According to police, the victim told paramedics that someone had grabbed him from behind and “splashed a burning liquid on his face”. Some reports claimed that Kim was attacked with a poisonous needle or acid spray. According to Malaysian police spokesman Fadzil Ahmat, the grandson of North Korea’s founder expired on the way to a nearby hospital.

It was later confirmed that, at the time of his death, Kim was using a North Korean passport issued under the name “Kim Chol” and giving his date of birth as June 10, 1970. However, the travel document is believed to have been forged. Malaysian authorities said on Tuesday they had been unable to identify the suspects, but that an investigation was ongoing. Early on Wednesday, Malaysian authorities released CCTV footage of one of the suspects (pictured). Meanwhile, Kim’s body has been subjected to an autopsy, but the results remain unavailable. South Korean authorities told the Reuters news agency that Kim had been killed by assassins working for the North Korean government.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 15 February 2017 | Permalink