DUBAI — A slain militant of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas confessed to his involvement in the 1989 killings of two Israeli soldiers, in a video aired on Sunday more than two weeks after his death.

Mahmud al-Mabhuh, whose body was found in a luxury Dubai hotel room on January 20, said in the tape broadcast by Al-Jazeera television that he had been at the centre of the killings of Ilan Saadon and Avi Sasportas.

The two were abducted in separate incidents more than two decades ago.

Appearing on tape with his face hidden behind a scarf, Mabhuh detailed the kidnapping of Sasportas.

He other militants had disguised themselves as religious Jews to abduct the soldier, whose body was found in April 1989.

"Before burying him (Sasportas), we stripped him of his clothes and took his IDs, wallet ... and his personal weapon," Mabhuh said.

Saadon was kidnapped while hitchhiking south of Tel Aviv and taken to Gaza where he was killed.

"I pulled out my (38mm) revolver and pointed it at his (Saadon's) head to shoot him, but (my comrade) Abu Suhaib was faster than me. He shot him with his own pistol," Mabhuh said.

The militant, a founder of Hamas's armed wing, also said that he took precautions against the risks of Israeli retaliation but would be honoured to die a "martyr."

"I am always on alert, but only God decides the duration we live. I have chosen a path whose cost I was aware of, and I will be honoured to die a martyr," Mabhuh said in the tape.

Mabhuh said he had been the target of at least three assassination attempts but was saved by a keen intuition that earned him the nickname of "the fox."

Dubai's police chief has said Israel's spy agency Mossad may have been behind last month's killing, while his brother said Mabhuh, 50, who was based in Damascus, had been in Dubai on a tour to buy weapons for the Islamists.

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