How many hitmen?

The line of questioning has changed. It's no longer the speculation on whether Israel's intelligence agency, Mossad was behind the assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel room last month.

The question now, certainly on the lips of journalists, is why does it take at least 26 people to kill one man traveling without a bodyguard?

Fifteen more suspects named by Dubai police Wednesday, although the passports are fraudulent and the names "borrowed."

Dubai's police chief has said he is 99 percent sure Mossad is responsible and that seems good enough for most people. Let me caution though, while not revealing personal opinion, that an arms dealer would likely have enemies.

Trips to Dubai by some suspects for planning purposes started almost a year ago, according to police. They say suspects traveled through eight different countries, including two on Australian passports who left Dubai on a ship to Iran, according to police.

The diagram for the travel routes of the operation stage look like a complicated family tree. The suspects between them covered 10 countries, credit cards were used by 14 different suspects, identities stolen from five different nationalities… again according to Dubai police.

The target - one man who appeared to be in transit, who went shopping for shoes and who had no security.

That's not to make him sound harmless. Hamas has admitted he was behind the kidnapping and killing of two Israeli soldiers in 1989 and Israeli security sources tell me he was a key link between Hamas and Iran when it comes to smuggling arms into Gaza.

But such a huge team still seems excessive to a layman like me who is not privy to the usual etiquette of international assassinations.

This is one of the first times we have been given such an accessible peephole into the murky world of alleged hitmen and women. Maybe that’s why the appetite for details no matter how mundane or distasteful is so great.

A first but maybe also a last. This world of technology we live in as proved by Dubai police could deter the next old-fashioned hit squad picked up on security cameras every step of the way – no matter how good the disguises or how powerful the sponsor.

Posted by: CNN Correspondent, Paula Hancocks
Filed under: General