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.
@Anders – well i noticed you missed me ! so i thought i’d rejoin the debate, despite the fact that you seem to think i’m a shrill, spook bla bla. anyway you’re posts are very interesting, on the whole, if sometimes a little mad ! (for my tastes) then again you are irish. what is it they say about madness and genius being closely entwined ?! please keep going
@Peter – what blows the lone nutter theory totally out of the water for me is the phrase that came out that they were no ordinary tourists, hence one hell of a coincidence to then be whacked by a lone nutter.
I’ll give you my version of how I think the shooting happened – then you can, erm, shoot me down
The al-Hillis have just finished their picknick and are packing up their belongings (those “big bags”) and getting back into their car (hence the open door of the boot). The elder daughter is answering the call of nature before they leave.
A strange, menacing-looking man appears from his hiding place underneath the bridge on the opposite side of the road, from which he has been watching the al-Hilli family for some time. He shouts something unintelligible and pulls out a gun to which he has attached a home-made silencer, such as the muffler of a lawnmower. Panicking, SAH starts the car and hits reverse, even though one of his daughters is still outside the car. The shooter fires at the windscreen as he approaches the car, the shot goes high and misses.
Not being familiar with RHD cars, the shooter then first approaches the “wrong” side of the car. Realizing his mistake, he fires four, five shots at SAH, because incapacitating the driver must be his first priority. (SAH could, and indeed should, have tried to run the shooter over with his car.) The shooter moves around to the driver’s side of the car, pausing along the way to lean on the bonnet and shoot SAH through the windscreen at close range.
Standing by the front driver’s side window, he reloads, fires some more shots at SAH and also at the female passengers in the rear through that window, always aiming at their heads, but frequently missing his mark.
He reloads and returns to the other, left-hand side of the car, to get off some more shots at the passengers in the rear. He does not “double-tap” them in the head as a coup-de-grace, he merely aims at their heads and achieves *at least one hit* to the head for each victim. (If you read closely, it doesn’t say “two shots to the head” anywhere, only “at least one shot to the head”.) He is not that good a shot, as evident from the fact that he also hits the B- and C-pillars of the BMW (those pink spots are the noise-insulating foam that the pillars are filled with.)
The cyclist appears, realizes what is happening, turns around and shouts at the shooter to stop. He is hit with three bullets to the torso plus two to the head as he is already on the ground. He is the only victim to receive two shots to the head as a coup-de-grace.
Finally, the killer turns his attention to the elder daughter who has seized the moment in which he was gunning down the cyclist and had his back turned to the car to try to run away. She is screaming in terror. He has to shut her up somehow, quickly, before another passer-by appears on the scene. He beats her around the head with his gun, she falls onto her back. He keeps hitting her on the head but she still keeps wailing and struggling. He shoots her in the shoulder to shut her up, but not to kill her.
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I’ve seem better storylines on Dora the Explorer!!! 🙂
Strange menacing looking man, RAOTFL!!! 🙂
O!
My aching sides!!! 🙂
Do you do stand-up?!!? 🙂 🙂 🙂
also worth considering that unless killing for intrigue or out of habit lone nutters tend to want the eventual notoriety…hence ab for example didn’t shoot himself and didn’t try to evade capture
@Peter I havent been there but have just checked it out on Google Maps and it is grand and has 30+ cars parked in the courtyard, so of the 30 plus staff 20 are Legals/intelligence officers?
I give the Police and Intelligence services more credit than that they would not have put all their eggs in one basket just on a hunch they must have hard evidence that this is a Foreigner or have intelligence of such!
Could someone post their theory on how all these shootings could possibly be done in 30 seconds ?
Sure katie watch some of the videos Anders posted yesterday i think. these videos are of a sports shooter, now if it were a matter of life and death, perhaps your own, you become pretty efficient with the right skill sets. one man could have done all that in 30 seconds but my preference is for a team.
@anders, hayden ?
@Sinbad
Thanks, good to get that corroboration.
So, even in NZ the word “sibling” would be odd, and we’d expect yards not metres.
@James
Agreed that BM thinking SM was resting was decidedly odd.
I tell you I have no idea as it takes more than one person to control the scene.
How do you spary the car first and then shoot each person in the head twice at closer range? surely they wouldnt all be out for the count from the shots to the car and then be sitting ducks for the final shots? they would duck/struggle do what they could to save themself in a last ditch attempt for survival? Passive as I said before.
What if they shot them twice and then sprayed the car to make it look sloppy?
Apologise about Kidon, and btw we Irish have more literary genius per square inch than any other country! )
I haven’t time to do that now Bilbo. but logically I say for one person it’s not possible….which I remember Anders saying too.
Nor could accurate shots be fired through crazed glass,as also stated before.
@bilbo
Mum’s the word! 😉
Are you a psychologist or a shrink perhaps? Just interested in your area of expertise.
Side glass thin and unlikely to deflect bullets. anyway when you’ve made a hole that problem is solved, windscreen known to be unreliable to shoot through due to reinforced shatterproof thicker glass potentially altering trajectory of bullet ? as i’ve said kill driver, others nowhere to go, esopceially if the car is locked. it is possible for a one man job, but it’s highly improbable.
@Mochyn69-20 Sep, 2012 – 12:41 pm
I don’t know, but I think if one breaks the circumstances down – pre-event, event-murders, and post-event – then that analysis has a certain logic and sufficient flexibility to account for various parties’ roles.
Anders i’m interested in what motivates people to do what they do let’s put it that way – you’re in the right area. Hence my scepticism of mr raf interview – i’ve spent quite a lot of time, sitting one on one with people, trying to pick up hidden messages, meanings, intentions. maybe i’m bad at my job but my gut said FAKE. EVASIVE. UNREAL. The phrase too much info springs to mind – the classic and most obvious pointer to a porky.
Oh, but even Breivik deliberately spared some – peter out of interest, how do you know that ? i work in the area of the human mind and i would say that during the shooting he was in a trance, as he has alluded to himself. therefore he was in no position to be making such informed choices. the key word is random.
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Mind Kontrolle
Also, lets face it, it was a highly unusual interview in timing, style and delivery. Rarely do people get ‘wheeled out’ in this way after such an event, especially having said they ‘are in fear of their lives’.
Bangin on now, but also what was the point of that interview ? usually those interviews are to provoke a response in people (witnesses) to get more info or to communicate directly to the perpetrators. What did i learn from his interview – “i promise i was there. i know nothing of interest.”
did we need to know that ? its hardly bought the investigation on leaps and bounds.
@anders mind kontrolle – are you referring to his testimony when he talks about effectively having to psych himself up (apparently against his better judgement) as he is about to start the island shooting ?
We’ve been duped!
When searching William Martin or William Brett Martin the search brought up an interview with BBC2 Operation Mincemeat the fictional RAF Major made up for the World War II Operation was called “William Martin”!
“The most extraordinary aspect of Operation Mincemeat, to my mind, is the way that the organizers approached this elaborate, many-layered deception operation as if they were writing a novel, imagining a version of reality and then luring the truth towards it. Indeed, the talents required for espionage and fiction-writing are not so very different. At the center of the plot was the fictional figure of William Martin: he was equipped with not only false papers but an entirely false personality and past, including a fiancée, complete with love letters.”
http://walkergeorgefilms.co.uk/related-articles/operation-mincemeat/interview-with-ben-macintyre/
I find it strange that there is increasingly less discussion of the primary victim, Mr. al-Hilli, who worked for Surrey Satellite Technology Limited, and who was a Shiite who visited the Qom religious site in Iran on occasion.
He was obviously most aware of what the SSTL was producing for the European Space Agency, especially it cryoset-2 satellite which is capable of measuring the thickness of anything, whether it be ice, water or land.
While the ESA has been using it to measure the collapsing ice pack in the Arctic and Greenland, its parent, the National Reconnaissance Office must be using its top-of-the-line ones in such regards to find Iran’s underground nuclear sites in the expectation that they will be hit during some kind of showdown with Iran.
Seems that al-Hilli was persuaded to pass his most secret knowledge along to the Iranians, and Sylvain Mollier was the connection, thanks to his employer having passed prohibited technology along to Iran.
Unfortunately, for them, NSA learned about it, and MI6 was obliged to take them out, thanks to the dressing down that its chief, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, displayed over the Brits doing the heavy lifting when it came to leaks and leakers.
Looks to me that the RAF’s Brett Martin was part of the hit squad whose job was to see that the conspiracy hit was covered up, and he was succeeded excellently in his mission.
The shooter or shooters, though, lost their stomach when it came to killing the girls.
I have informed the Iranians of what al-Hilli was allegedly up to, with or without their knowledge and help, and we shall just have to see how it all works out.
Was al-Hilli really a spy, like Gareth Williams and Gudrun Loftus, or was he just set up to take the pressure off doing something for the Israelis?
And, as I recall, he was not under any OSA obligation not to leak, like Gareth Williams when it came to blowing the whistle on the loony Americans in the Manhattan 11 caper.
When are some of you going to set up shop in Chevaline – starting to interview witnesses before memory wanes?
I will be willing to support it in cool cash [remember to use Paypal] as surely would many others. It will become a flashpoint in opposing mainstream history writing. It really could be something that will unite us real history baffoons intend of getting to the bottom of things.
Crumbs @anders7777, your posts are getting worse. You are often not taking this topic seriously – does everything have to be “ROFL” and have a ™ symbol at the end? Peter is offering literate, paragraphed, considered views, and your somewhat childish responses don’t even explain why you disagree.
@Anders
VV
I think we all have researched and discussed Al-Hilli what he did, he worked on, what sort of work the company did and for who, however this really doesnt point to anything as far as the Ineternet confirms.
They did deal with some big players and countries and SSTL isnt a small company and has grown a lot over the last 5 years, however the stories are full of holes and inconsistancy, eg: he didnt have secrutiy clearance yet he was currently working on a secret defence contract with EADS?
People close to him pointing to his job as being a reason for his death.
The police saying that the family where not just normal Tourists.
What was found in the shed?
He really is a perfect target for intelligence agencies wether that is Iran/UK/US or european, he was refused a visa to Iraq at first but was allowed to tarvel there a number of years later? why the change of mind?, he wasnt granted Security Clearance because he was Iraqi?, his home town was bombed? he went back to Iraq to find his families home but was now being used as a barracks, he lost his wife? he didnt like the west or the USA, he didnt like the state of Israel, he didnt make much money, he was a womaniser in the past (maybe still is)…………..all these things make it easier to turn someone, all you have to do is find their trigger from the long list above and you can be used to steal information, products or be an asset in the UK.
Was this a cell in France close to the Nuclear installations of France and Switzerland, its a perfect base near to Geneva and the Italian borders!
@Trowbridge
Yes as always a precise and excellent summary altho the role of Brett Martin needs a closer look.
Well, this is the second day in a row without any news at all in any of the mainstream media outlets.
Normal and naturally winding down?
Gagging orders?
Or the calm before a storm?
It seems awfully and prematurely quiet to me for no news at all just two weeks after a multiple high interest murder like this.
I smell a super injunction, as well as a DA notice.
Trowbridge – are you “the” Trowbridge H Ford?
@ legoland boss
james still isnt back from lunch but peter brings a packed one, his lunchbox that is, promote peter, the dedicated one..i think i saw james in vauxhall mcdonny’a having his 3rd big mac…he’s a big lad , six feet4 no less…. you’d never get him into a north face bag