Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 2:28 PM on 19th February 2010

MI6 was tipped off that Israeli agents were going to carry out an 'overseas operation' using fake British passports, it was claimed last night.A
member of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, said the Foreign
Office was also told hours before a Hamas terrorist chief was assassinated in Dubai.The tip-off did not say who the target would be or even where the hit squad would be in action. But the claim from a credible source that the Government had some prior knowledge of the abuse of UK passports will strengthen calls for ministers to come clean about what they knew and when.

Oath of revenge: Hamas militants stamping on an Israeli flag during a memorial rally for Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Gaza last night

Hamas militants in a refugee camp brandish their weapons during a parade to honour their dead commander

It came as more details emerged of how Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was lured into a trap by Palestinian double agents last month before being smothered with a pillow. The killers tried to make his death look like an accident.

A British security source who met the Mossad agent, and has a track record of providing reliable information, told the Daily Mail: 'This is a serving member of Israeli intelligence. 'He says the British Government was told very, very briefly before the operation what was going to happen. There was no British involvement and they didn't know the name of the target. But they were told these people were travelling on UK passports.'

The security source said that the tip-off was not a request for permission to use British passports but more a 'courtesy call' to let the security services know 'a situation' might blow up.

Nothing more to add: Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor leaving the Foreign Office

The Mossad man said Israeli intelligence chiefs understand British authorities will have to 'slap them on the wrist' and added: 'The British government has to be seen to be going through the motions.' The Israeli's claims contradict Foreign Office assertions that the UK knew nothing of the affair until shortly before the Dubai authorities went public over the assassination earlier this week. However officials in the Gulf state have claimed that British ministers may have been alerted by Dubai last month about the use of the passports. If MI6 received a tip-off from Mossad it is not certain it would have been passed to Foreign Secretary David Miliband, particularly if it was vague.

'Outrage' David Miliband has vowed to find out how the assassins were able to steal British people's identities

Intelligence officers may have preferred to wait before alerting ministers. But any suggestion that officials turned a blind eye to an extra-judicial killing will strengthen calls for a public inquiry into the UK's involvement in the war on terrorism.

Judges have already ruled that British spies have been complicit in the torture of terrorist suspects. It will also fuel suspicions in some Arab countries that Britain was 'complicit' in the killing of al-Mabhouh. A Foreign Office spokesman insisted last night it was 'not correct' to claim that Britain knew in advance about the passports.

He said: 'We received the details of the British passports a few hours before the press conference [by police in Dubai]. We were able to respond to the Dubai authorities on the authenticity of the passports the next day.' And
a Government spokeswoman today insisted it only found out about the murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai last month when details appeared in media reports.

The department insisted it was only told that cloned British passports were involved shortly before authorities in the Gulf state went public with the information.

'Any suggestion that we knew anything about the murder in Dubai before it happened, including about the misuse of British passports, is completely untrue,' the spokeswoman said. 'As we have said already, the Dubai authorities told us about the role of British passports on February 15, several hours before their press conference. We told them the following day that the passports used were fraudulent. 'The head of the Dubai police has also made clear that embassies were not contacted until shortly befor the identity of the suspects was revealed.'

The British source told the Mail he has known the Mossad man for more than 20 years and they met as part of a
longstanding arrangement. He said British-Israeli intelligence relations were 'jogging along very nicely when nobody knew - then it all became public'. The Israeli agent rejected suggestions that intelligence-sharing between the two nations might be damaged. He said Mossad was handling several sources within the UK Muslim community and added: 'There is no question of jeopardising that information flow.' The revelation of a 'tip-off' came after Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor was 'invited' to the Foreign Office and asked to co-operate fully with the inquiry into the forged passports by the Serious Organised Crime Agency.

Frustrated diplomats said he failed to promise to do so. A senior government official told the Mail: 'We asked the Israelis toco-operate fully and that's where we left it. We asked some tough questions.' The official added: 'The Israeli ambassador didn't say a great deal.' As he left the Foreign Office, a relaxed Mr Prosor denied there was any 'additional information' to give. Foreign Secretary David Miliband branded the abuse of ID documents 'outrageous' and demanded that Tel Aviv co-operate fully. His shadow William Hague demanded 'fuller' answers about when the Foreign Office knew of the 'cloned' passports.

Innocent Briton Paul Keeley (L) and (R) the picture in his cloned passport

Enlarge

CCTV footage from the hotel shows Mahmoud al-Mabhouh (circled) arriving at the hotel The row came as more details of the plot to kill the Hamas leader were disclosed. Intelligence sources say al-Mabhouh was lured to a meeting in Dubai by two men who had worked with him in Hamas in Gaza He did not realise they had defected to the more moderate Fatah, bitter enemies of Hamas, and were secretly working with the Israelis.

Two Palestinian men are in custody in Dubai. The director of the Dubai Police forensic medicine department revealed yesterday that finding the cause of al-Mabhouh's death had been the most difficult post mortem he
had ever done. British-trained Dr Fawzi Benomran said the killers had put his body in bed and covered it, to make it appear he had died in his sleep. But he and his team established that death was caused by 'suffocation by smothering, most probably with a pillow'.