My post on the shootings in France has brought tens of thousands of people to this site – but not to read my dull contribution. People are coming to read the comments from other readers.
Today’s development of the bomb squad descending on the al-Hilli house does not in itself worry me enormously. You may recall the massive terror scare that was ramped up when some Muslim students in Manchester were found to own a bag of sugar.
In fact we have the opposite phenomenon today, with the spook-fed “security correspondents” on TV lining up to tell us it is probably just everyday household stuff. This deviation from the standard Islamophobic “Muslims = bombs” narrative is so startling it makes me wonder why the “move along, nothing to see here” line is being taken so quickly.
My own security services sources insist that al-Hilli was not a person of current interest to the UK intelligence agencies and was not involved in anything clandestine. I have no reason to disbelieve them. On the other hand, the limited and confusing information in the media is almost entirely from official sources. I find it very strange indeed how little attention has been paid to the murdered French cyclist, and how easily it is presumed he was just a passerby. Surely it is as likely he was the intended victim and the al-Hillis the accidental witnesses?
Please do read the comments on my first entry on the subject to see the debate unfettered by the censorship in the mainstream media. This is perhaps my favourite comment:
From Janesmith101
All comments regarding Sylvain, Al-Hilli and a possible nuclear link are being removed from sites I’ve posted on in The Guardian, Independent and Huffpo UK.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/sep/09/alps-killer-motive-baffles-police
Here was my comment, I added as a point of fact it was completely speculative and an unproven theory in a later comment, also removed.
Sylvain Mollier, the ‘passing’ cyclist, was in fact a nuclear metallurgist who worked for a french nuclear company called Cezus (a subsidiary of Areva). Cezus fabricates and processes zirconium into metal and nuclear grade zircoaloy for nuclear fuel assemblies – it also has other applications in aerospace such as components and ceramics for missiles and satellites. Mr Al-Hilli was also a skilled aerospace engineer, on what looks to be his first camping holiday.
What is the probability that two highly skilled engineers managed be at the same remote place, at the same time, yet still managed to end up dead as a result of what looks to be a military style assasination?
As someone else pointed out in The Independent comments, the deceased were found by a ‘retired’ RAF officer who, we assume, will recieve perpetual anonymity as a witness. If the police are looking for a motive, try an intercepted rendevous by a security service fixated on denying a hostile power illicit nuclear technology.
http://wrmea.org/component/content/article/162-1995-june/7823-israel-bombs-iraqs-osirak-nuclear-research-facility.html
The Huffington Post UK reports that this wasn’t the family’s first trip to the camp site. An earlier report had asked other camp site visitors whether they had seen the family before and they had replied they hadn’t. If this isn’t wasn’t the first visit by Al-Hilli, it might slightly increase the odds that he knew or had met Mollier before, this being the last in a series of rendevous of a transactional nature. Mollier lived and worked locally.
Again, I’m not sure of the truth of these reports, there is some very sloppy journalism, as there is always seems to be. I’ve read for example Mollier’s company Cevus descirbed as a steel firm something which it is patently not, but perhaps it may have been a detail lost in translation.
An interesting comment summing up some of the strange coincidences, at least, surrounding these murders. My other favourite comment calls me a “macchiavellian shill”.
I have only one thought of my own I want to add at the minute. Al-Hilli was a Shia muslim and had been on pilgrimage to Qoms in Iran. What if it is indeed true that he was in possession of no especial nuclear or defence secrets to pass on to the Iranians, but the Israelis thought that he was? The Israeli programme of assassination of scientists involved in Iran’s nuclear programme is a definite fact. It makes as much sense as anything else at the moment, as a possibility.
I am not saying that is what happened. But the directions in which the mainstream media is being so strenuously pointed by official sources, like the massacre of an entire family over an inheritance, are certainly no more inherently probable. Certainly as we are now told all the shots were from one gun, for the assassin to get each victim in the head with none of them being able to escape, indicates real proficiency with the weapon and a very high level of training.
Bluebird,
Sorry but you’ll need to do better than that. I have a physics background (very rusty I admit) and I am not seeing the connection you are seeing. Posting a link to CERN on Wikipedia and saying “this is how a laser guided particle accelerator works” doesn’t cut it.
Seems to me it is your pet theory which isn’t backed up by the physics. But then I admit I don’t know exactly what “SILEX” is. It is possible we’ve been fed misleading info and there is more relevance than I can see.
Dave
Given that al-Hilli dropped everything and went straight over to France, could it be that whoever the killers were had to do the same, thus not having the chance for the full team to be present?
Be nice if builder man could remember if there was a bike ontop of the BMW when it drove past him…
=====
You assume the MASONS were real. Their story was real, RAFman’s blown story was real. The bint who saw a mad man in a “black polarneck” (Jeez) doing a Steve McQueen down the hill was real.
Wag the dog.
Or should that be, Wag the Frog.
The shooting could not have happened before SM turned up because the murderer(s) had already run out of ammunition and tried to kill the seven year old by hand.
CERN was started by Ambers7777
It serves merely to misdirect.
Maybe the killer hated red BMW’s.
Maybe he hated the Five sries ?
It falls down to “how”, then “Who” then “Why”.
Unless you like Snooker Loopy people, then in does not matter !!
Why let fact get in the way of a good story (and only on iphone !).
I
Anton….
“The shooting could not have happened before SM turned up because the murderer(s) had already run out of ammunition and tried to kill the seven year old by hand”.
Tried…or trying ? When SM cycled up ?
Think about it James. The murderer is a clinical assassin delivering shots to the head. Yet the girl is shot elsewhere. It points to him shooting at her from a distance, running out of ammo, and then trying to murder her by hand (barely imaginable in the civilised world I accept). All of which points to SM already being dead.
Anon,
Let me be very clear on the information supplied by my source, an Iraqi doctor. His knowledge extends only to the fact that the British authorities thought Saad might (a) be useful in strengthening the case for a strike on Iraq to preempt the use of WMD at 40 minutes notice; al Hilli was an loyal engineer known to Saddam – (b) Saad loathed America (understandable) and was prepared to commit possible treasonable acts to supply Iran with certain types of information useful to their nuclear and possibly satellite imaging research.
Anything more is my own supposition.
Bluebird said:
Are you seriously suggesting he was enriching Uranium Hexaflouride via the SILEX process in his garage? Hmm. The 3 phase link to the national grid to power his garage lasers might have been a give away. That and the several tonnes of Uranium Hexaflouride sitting around.
This seems to be the most complete description of SILEX if it is accurate http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/lanl/docs4/silex.pdf
Mark,
Thanks for clarification.
I agree, barely imaginable, but this has happened.
Now we seek the truth.
You say “a clinical assassin delivering shots to the head”.
Before or after the “event” ?
As in, shooting 3 adults in different positions with two shots to the head…has to be a hard act (physically) I would think.
I have tried to retain some link to the facts. The comments on Al-Hilli are conjecture. My understanding is that the Iraqis who left Iraq in the 70’s were enemies of the regime. Why would an Iraqi help Iran given the hatred between those two countries? The real issue is the cyclist. Why is there so little proper forensic analysis of his work given, as I say, so many circumstantial issues which point to him being the obvious target? I don’t accept the D notice point because these are not legally enforceable. Editors can ignore them. It just looks like very sloppy investigative journalism.
But this is where I agree…and completely agree with you.
This could vindicate Blair at a critical moment in Middle East.In the pipeline for sometime? ready to put into action quickly(maybe why botched)Mossad contracted on behalf of other parties?
According to their website, CEZUS Ugine is the main CEZUS R&D site, and CEZUS is a subsidiary of AREVA, world leader in nuclear enrichment technology (including experimental laser enrichment).
Is the range of R&D at Ugine known, even approximately?
I’ve always assumed that the Iranians, who invented chess, are simply using the development of dual-purpose enrichment technology (while carefully avoiding anything solely weapons-related) as a ‘defensive’ bargaining tool, after having been encircled by NATO in 2001-3.
But for the threat to work, it has to be credible. It seemed at first that their known problems in procuring the highly-refined Zirconium cladding made at Ugine for fuel rods at the experimental Arak site was the obvious ‘connection’ here, but certainly, if CEZUS/AREVA researchers at Ugine are working on more effective and much smaller-scale enrichment processes, then that might be another connection…
I don’t think Iran actually wants a bomb, just the threat of one, while remaining more or less in compliance with the IAEA. A new, more effective and far more easily concealable enrichment process would certainly increase their bargaining power…
Anon, I never said that he did enrich uranium in his garage. Don’t blame me for something I haven’t done. What I said is that he might have built an experimental device for scientific tests. Even that will leave some marginal radioactive devices.in his garage.
James we are agreed on the barbarism. This is the kind of thing we fought the second world war to stop and here it resurfaces in our midst. I cannot of course say how this shooting took place. What I had in mind was something like:
1. SM murdered as per ‘plan’ by single assassin;
2. Al Hilli tourist family blunder in to it by accident, perhaps letting their daughter out of the car to heed the call of nature;
3. Assassin sees them and Al-Hilli car reverses at speed but too late as driver shot in head through window;
4. Then relatively easy to kill others through window, except four year old who has crouched down;
5. Seven year old emerges from bush, or runs and is shot but ammo runs out therefore murderer bludgeons her?
Conjecture of course but if the murderer was expecting to kill more one assumes there would have been more of them and more ammunition.
Anton, I have been to Iraq after the regime was overthrown.
I have been to Nothern Iraq, again after the regime.
I understand the numerous unhappy people there.
I have a cousin who is Persian.
I understand his thoughts.
This brings anyone with so much as an atom on them or a dim recollection how they once de-fragged a bunsen-burner or something, under suspicion. Insistence you ‘know nothing’ confirms the worst. Certain places then out of bounds to anyone feared ‘brainy’.
I don’t know why people are attempting to make this whole thing more complicated than it has to be. It seems to me likely that al Hilli was due to meet the French cyclist – for whatever reason. That both of them were under suspicion of cooperation with Iran. Probably suspected by the Israelis. And that they were both shot for this reason. Al Hilli’s wife and mother in law could have been shot as a warning to others. Or just because they were there.
It’s perfectly possible that the ex-RAF guy is legit, lives in the area, and was out for a cycle. There is no reason to think the older girl was “tortured”. She probably left the car before the shooting took place, and on coming back, was shot at and hit on the head. When the mother had seen gunmen approaching, she had pushed the 4-year-old girl down and told her to hide. There is no reason to think the little girl used the words “good guys and bad guys” – that was indirect speech, words used by Maillaud.
I can’t see much in the way of blood spatter, but I did think there was blood on the shelf behind the back seats. However, it wouldn’t have remained so red for so long. Blood goes a rust colour fairly quickly.
If al Hilli had been leaving the previous camp site on his own several times a day, perhaps the killers were surprised to find him there with a car full of people. They killed the two women, but didn’t expect the children. Weren’t prepared for them. So they dealt with the older girl as quickly as possible and missed the younger one completely. They had limited time and had to get away.
Questions remaining:
Why did the ex-RAF guy not hear the shooting? Or did he? Do we have any idea where the 4×4 and the motorbike are supposed to have been when seen by him? Did they pass him on their way down when he was still on his way up?
Why did the killers come back down the road, and risk being seen, instead of carrying on round the bend and on for 20 miles as the “crime reporter” mentioned on BBC 5 Live?
Who used the second weapon which caused the police to find casings from more than one weapon? The weapon used in the killings seems to have been reasonably well established here.
Did General Yossi Ben Hanan from the Israeli embassy land at a nearby helicopter pad and pick the killers up? Did the French bother to follow this angle up?
Now what have I left out? Please do tear this to pieces.
(I don’t see where or why people started to think of the French cyclist as the ‘main target’.)
Geronimo’s point about Cezuz, where SM worked, is very interesting. How can we get journalists to look into this?
Your comment VERY interesting.
So (I agree) was SM there to be killed ? (I think yes)
But why there ?
He was a man of Two children with one forner wife.
And One with a new wife.
But he had to be there for a reason ?
It was (the new wife said) a new route ?
Anton, they wont. They wont look.
There was an old saying some one once told me…it relates to driving in the U.K.
(Not sure if you live in the U.K. or not. I don’t)
“Never enter a Yellow box unless you have a clear exit”
Gunmen with weapons (as mad as they may be) are not “stupid”.
“It was (the new wife said) a new route ?”
I thought it was said that that was the route he took every day, or all the time. But even if it was a new route, maybe he told his wife he was trying out a new route because that’s where he had arranged to meet Al Hilli.
Nuid that’s an interesting analysis but why would Al-Hilli take his whole family along to a rendezvous like that. Just sticking to the facts, whereas Geronimo has given good evidence that SM worked in a sector that could be a direct threat to Israel’s interests, Al-Hilli doesn’t seem to have any technical expertise of use to anyone, though he was apparently quite good with a screwdriver. The reason I still reject Israeli involvement may be my naievity but I cannot, as I say, conceive of a member of a ‘western’ military unit acting with such barbarism against a non-combatant.
It was early on.
And I swear I recall, it was a “new route” that was said.
And by his wife.
His second wife. He had a previous one ( with two chidren).
Very important folks
you’ll have noticed that i am ***not *** interacting with or answering any of these newbie arseholes with one or two posts
that have magic theories
that have magic perps
that are very au fait with ballistics lol
i am too, but these arseholes try and shout you down
they try and swamp you
stick to
hard data
and fuck ’em!
Ambers, go away.
There is actually good work here.
Anton,
You said, Why would an Iraqi help Iran given the hatred between those two countries? A reasonable question.
It is true sadly some conservative Sunni doctrines preach hatred of Shias period.
Yet no hate exists between these countries because the US arming of Iraq and the Iran/Iraq war served British/American interests that revealed UKUS ambitions in Iraq to be just another chapter in the attempt to regain a foothold in the Mideast following the fall of the Shah of Iran.
Also as I have said I know 2 expat Iranians in Britain who fled the Shah’s brutal Mossad/CIA trained Savak terror squads are now working for Iranian interests.
geronimo,
I would definitely like to know more about the background of the French nuclear “metallurgist”. There could be more to him than meets the eye.
I am sure the Iranians would be interested in SILEX as it would be applicable to civilian uses as well as bombs. Iran is known to have researched laser enrichment in the past and may have clandestine laser enrichment facilities right now. They may already have all the info they need on the process for all we know.