EXCLUSIVE
ASIO is investigating at least three dual Australian-Israeli citizens who they suspect of using Australian cover to spy for Israel.
The investigation began at least six months before last month's assassination of the Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, widely believed to have been carried out by the Israeli security agency Mossad.
Authorities in Dubai have revealed that three people suspected of taking part in the assassination were travelling on Australian passports, using the names of three dual Australian-Israeli citizens.
The three Australian names linked to the assassination are in no way connected to the three people being investigated by ASIO.
According to two Australian intelligence sources who have been in contact with the Herald, the three men under surveillance all emigrated to Israel within the last decade.
Each has travelled back to Australia at different times to legally change their names and obtain new Australian passports. One of the men has changed his surname three times, the other two have changed theirs twice.
The men have changed their names from surnames that could be read as European-Jewish to ones more typically identified as Anglo-Australian.
Australian citizens are generally allowed to change their name once every 12 months, as long as it is not for criminal reasons.
The new passports have been used to gain entry to a number of countries that are hostile to Israel including Iran, Syria and Lebanon. All three do not recognise Israel and forbid Israelis from entering. Israel also forbids its citizens from travelling to those countries for security reasons.
The Herald understands that the three Australians share an involvement with a European communications company that has a subsidiary in the Middle East. A person travelling under one of these names sought Australian consular assistance in Tehran in 2004.
The Herald has contacted two of the men, both of whom emphatically denied they were involved in any kind of espionage activity.
Both men confirmed they had changed their surnames, but said that the proposition they had done so in order to obtain new documents to travel throughout the Middle East were, in the words of one, "totally absurd''.
"This is a complete fantasy," said the man when contacted in Israel. "I have changed my name for personal reasons.''
The other man, who was not in Israel when contacted, expressed shock at the suggestion he was under any kind of surveillance and said that he had also changed his name for personal reasons.
"I have never been to any of those countries that you say I have been to,'' he said. ''I am not involved in any kind of spying. That is ridiculous."
The same man is also believed to hold British citizenship, and is believed to have come to the attention of British intelligence after he had changed his name.
In January the Herald visited the offices of the European company that connects the three men.
The company's office manager confirmed to the Herald that one of the men being monitored by ASIO - the same man believed to hold a British passport - was employed by the company but was "unavailable".
The company's chief executive later emphatically denied that this man was ever employed by his company, and totally rejected that his company was being used to gather intelligence on behalf of Israel.
ASIO said it had no comment to make on the case.
Meanwhile, the government confronted Israel for a second time yesterday over the Dubai plot, with the acting ambassador in Tel Aviv, Nicoli Maning-Campbell, conveying the government's concerns to officials in Israel.
The Israeli embassy in Canberra said it had relayed Australia's demands to Israel but would not comment.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/asio-targets-new-spy-suspects-20100226-p92...
Submitted by Ognir on Sun, 2010-02-28 02:56
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Mossad has made it much harder for Australians to travel in the Middle East, writes Paul Daley.
If you travel to Arab countries on a passport as seemingly innocuous as one bearing the Australian coat of arms, some security authorities will still suspect you of working for Israel.
Such is the justified paranoia of some Arab countries about the ruthless efficiency of the Israeli spy agency, Mossad, with its skill at fabricating agents' identities and the inventiveness it lends to killing enemies of the Jewish state.
As an Arab guide told me while I was in his country: "Here the authorities assume that every stranger is an Israeli spy."
Now that Mossad has been accused of stealing the passport identities of three Australian citizens for use in a political assassination, I'll be prepared for a tougher grilling than usual next time I visit Syria, Lebanon and certainly Hamas-controlled Gaza.
I'll also be a little more wary next time an Israeli military official at a West Bank checkpoint, at the Erez Crossing into Gaza or at the Allenby Bridge from Jordan, wanders into a back office with my passport in hand before returning it half an hour later.
I've been to Israel many times. I like its people, Arab and Jewish.
As someone who acknowledges Israel's right to exist, I also accept its right to defend its borders. Perhaps only when you travel through the Middle East enough, do you come to appreciate the intensity and depth of the hatreds that require it to be so vigilant.
I do not consider it contradictory that I also have reservations about Israel's conduct during the invasions of Gaza and Lebanon, and its occasional excesses in the West Bank. So, too, do many Israelis.
Until just a few years ago the pro-Western United Arab Emirates had been known to turn away foreigners if their passports had been stamped in Israel. Certainly, in Syria and Lebanon that remains a strict policy today. It is a largely symbolic act whereby anybody whose passport carries the Israeli stamp is seen to be acknowledging a state whose legitimacy Syria and Lebanon challenge and despise.
It is also part of a ridiculous charade, whose participants include seasoned Middle East travellers, immigration officials and the military.
The experienced will never try to enter Syria or Lebanon, perhaps even Jordan or the UAE, with a passport bearing an Israeli stamp. If they have been to Israel, they will have made other passport arrangements for their travels to the Arab states.
Similarly, they know to expect the question: "Have you ever been to Israel."
There is, of course, a correct answer: "No - only Palestine."
There is also a correct answer to the Israeli immigration official who asks if you intend to visit the West Bank or Gaza during your stay. Or the Israeli soldier at the checkpoint between the West Bank and Israel who demands to know, while staring at your Arab driver, if you've had meetings with any Arabs while in Palestine.
During a recent trip to the Middle East to research the movements of the Australian light horsemen during World War I, a member of our travelling party was found to have the Israeli stamp in his passport. The Lebanese border guards expelled him immediately, sending him back through the demilitarised zone into Syria where he had to take his chances with the local authorities.
We returned to Damascus a few days later, whereupon we were warned that - probably due to our acquaintance's misadventure - we, too, had come to the attention of the security authorities. We were watched and followed.
That's all it takes.
So, now that fake Australian passports have been used in the assassination in Dubai of the Hamas militant, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, probably, it seems, by Mossad agents, there is likely to be much greater scrutiny of Australians travelling in the Middle East.
Others in the group of suspected killers travelled on fraudulent British, Irish, French and German passports. It is instructive, perhaps, that they saw fit not to steal the identity of anyone from America and risk enraging Israel's greatest ally.
The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and the Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith - both great "friends" of the Jewish state - are right to be seething with anger at what appears to be Mossad's blithe implication of Australia in the Hamas militant's assassination.
They have demanded answers which Israel will never give them. But critically, they have, quite appropriately, put Australia's very close relationship with Israel on the line.
But it took a former Palestinian representative to Australia, Ali Kazak, to succinctly spell out the consequences of Mossad's actions - if, indeed, Mossad is responsible.
"What Mossad is doing is endangering every single Australian," said Kazak, who has previously warned Canberra that the Israeli spy agency was using forged Australian passports.
He is right. Australians travelling in parts of the Middle East would do well to be very wary.
Paul Daley is a Canberra author and Fairfax political columnist.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/with-friends-like-israel-x2026-20100226-p9...