Stehen Pollard, editor of the JC in an eamil March 3rd 2010
"He (al- Mabhouh) was a terrorist and that is how we have described him. That is how we describe Hamas. Indeed I have written elsewhere of the BBC's failure to call terrorists terrorists.
I think on one blog news item he was described as a militant. That should have been in inverted commas, as that is how others do - incorrectly in my view - refer to him.
The responsibility for everything is mine. If you want to have a go at our mistake in not calling him a terrorist, please blame me."

Militant>figure>commander.
Still no mention of a "terrorist".

'Lieberman: Don't blame Mossad for Dubai murder' by Jessica Elgot, February 22, 2010
"Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has told his Irish counterpart that there was no evidence Mossad carried out the murder of a Hamas militant in Dubai."

'Dubai seeks Netanyahu arrest' by Jessica Elgot, March 3, 2010
"Dubai’s police chief says he will seek an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in connection with the murder of a senior Hamas figure in Dubai."

'Anglo-Israeli ties will survive Dubai' By Miriam Shaviv March 4, 2010
"Against this backdrop, the revelation that the killers of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai had used forged British passports (as well as fake passports from several other countries) was widely expected to send British-Israeli relations into a tailspin."