Dubai's police chief said he is almost certain Israeli agents were involved in killing a Hamas militant in the emirate, a newspaper said on Thursday, raising the stakes in an escalating international row over the attack.

As Israel stuck to a policy of "ambiguity" on operations by its Mossad spy agency, London and Dublin summoned the Israeli ambassadors to explain why passport details of their citizens were used by the suspected hit squad.
 

Hamas sources also accused members of a rival Palestinian faction of helping Israel to kill Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a top commander in the Palestinian Islamist group who was found dead in his luxury hotel room in January.
 

Hamas has already blamed Israel for being behind the killing. On Thursday Dubai police chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim was quoted by an Emirati newspaper as saying he too was confident that Israeli agents were linked to the assassination.
 

"Our investigations reveal that Mossad is involved in the murder of al-Mabhouh. It is 99 percent, if not 100 percent, that Mossad is standing behind the murder," he told The National newspaper in a report posted on its website.
 

Tamim was not available to comment on the report.

Fake passports
The killings have sucked in several foreign governments as 11 suspects whose photos were distributed by Dubai appeared to have used fake European passports to enter the emirate.
 

Britain summoned Israel's ambassador to London Ron Prosor for a meeting with Peter Ricketts, who heads its diplomatic service, to explain how several UK citizens living in Israel found their passport details had been used by the alleged killers.
 

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Ricketts had made clear "how seriously we take any suggestion of fraudulent use of British passports."
 

"...We hope and expect they will cooperate fully with the investigation that has been launched by the prime minister [Gordon Brown]," Miliband said, adding that he hoped to discuss the issue further with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman when both men were in Brussels on Monday.

Irish upset
Dublin followed suit on Thursday, seeking an explanation of how the suspects had used passport details of three Irish citizens, one of whom has never been to Israel.
 

"We are taking this very, very seriously," Foreign Minister Micheal Martin told national broadcaster RTE.
 

Mossad is widely believed to have stepped up covert missions against Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah militia as well as Iran's nuclear project. But Lieberman said on Wednesday the use of the identities of foreign-born Israelis by the suspects did not prove Mossad involvement.
 

In Gaza, Hamas sources accused men they say are members of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement of aiding the murder, a link that could inflame hostility between the rival factions.
 

Hamas security officials, quoting colleagues living like Mabhouh in exile, say the two Palestinian suspects had been members of Fatah-controlled security forces in Gaza.
 

An Israeli security source has said Mabhouh played a key role in smuggling Iranian-funded arms to militants in Gaza.
 

The National newspaper said Interpol had issued "red notices" for 11 suspects. This is put out after authorities in a country issue a warrant to help with identification or location of a suspect with a view to their arrest or extradition.
 

Among killings attributed to Mossad was that of Hezbollah commander Imad Moughniyeh in Damascus two years ago.
 

Mabhouh, who was born in the Gaza Strip but had lived in Syria since 1989, was killed a day after he arrived in Dubai.
 

Both a Hamas official and Israel have said Mabhouh masterminded the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers during a Palestinian uprising in the 1980s.
 

Source: Reuters