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.
@Peter
Thanks. Any relation?
Any relation?
How would I know? I am already wholly confused with all those al-Hillis.
http://www.itn.liu.se/fe.itn.liu.se/fysikalisk-elektronik/group-members/dr-safaa-al-hilli?l=en
He is from Bagdad alright, but I’m getting the impression that searching for an al-Hilli from Bagdad is like searching for a Smith from London.
Here are the al-Saffer relatives of Suhaila and Ikbal in Sweden that have been making statement in the press:
http://www.ratsit.se/BC/SearchSimple.aspx?Where=Gustav+Adolfsv%e4gen+39
The 18-year old nephew is active on internet in discussions for building mosques och halal-slaughter, looks like an young devoted religious muslim. Family seems to be upper middle-class, own a descent house, living not so far from where Suhaila lived. Otherwise not much found.
The trouble with patents though is that they put the technology in the public domain. Not smart if you have something top-secret, IMO.
There must be a lot of Iraqis with their roots in the town of Hilla.
Have to correct again, it´s the al-Saffar ( not al-Saffer ) relatives in Sweden.
It’s a hard one.
Papers come up with “S Al Hilli et al” but he’s that dude in Sweeden.
Patents…are many and varied. I didn’t know you can patent the design of a pie ! But there ya go !
Other than that… I am interested why he goes contracting…and then it goes “lean”.
One thing I have come up with is that in Iraq at that time, theres lots of talk of “rebuilding” and “cash/money”.
Some “big players” (Al-Bunnia etc) survived through the Saddam times…and are back in business (BIG business).
In that his father had to “get out” of Iraq… I wonder if he was looking at “rebuilding the family fortune”….with the skills that he had ?
This would be a lot easier if Mollier was on 20K Euros, drove a Ferrari …and liked going to Tehran for his holidays !!!!
@Thomas
Have to correct again, it´s the al-Saffar ( not al-Saffer ) relatives in Sweden.
The Al-Saffers would presumably be from South Africa.
😀
How to build a Hafnium bomb (not) 😉
http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?FT=D&date=20080207&DB=EPODOC&locale=en_EP&CC=US&NR=2008031791A1&KC=A1&ND=4
I couldn’t find any patents for somebody with the surname al-Hilli, nor for a Sylvain Mollier
The trouble with patents though is that they put the technology in the public domain. Not smart if you have something top-secret, IMO.
I don’t wish to appear pedantic, but it actually works the other way around. If you as a researcher come up with an idea that the powers that be deem “interesting”, they slap a classified patent on it that prevents you from exploiting your own invention or even talking about it – whether you like it or not. There is no legal recourse against having your invention turned into a classified patent.
I didn’t know that.
Presumably, classified patents are not publicly viewable?
I think that’s what I was getting at, really – if we don’t find any patents for SAH or SM it doesn’t mean they didn’t invent anything…
I suppose you have tried to search without the al-, because many with that kind of name would conceivably want to sound more western, in order to blend in better. He might even call himself “Hill”, or he has another surname that he uses, which is not so broad in scope as al-Hilli, (meaning “man from Hillah”)
@Anders
@Trowbridge
Seems to me that we have reached this point in our searches, but please correct me if I am wrong, or have left out something important:
1. Al-Hilli could have helped Saddam in his hopes of still gaining nuclear weapons after the first Gulf War, making him most bitter after his ouster in the second one.
2. Al-Hilli in meeting, marrying and having children with Iranian Suhaila al-Allaf became so committed to seeking revenge against the perpetrators of the Gulf Wars, especially because of the losses Iran had experienced through NRO-made earthquakes in keeping Tehran at bay during them, that he ultimately decided to spy for the Iranians, particularly because of paranoia about Israel’s role in the process.
3. Al-Hilli’s work at SSTL gave him access to information and know-how about new miniature, radar satellites which would alert Tehran about the dangers its nuclear and weapons programs faced and what counter measures to adopt, and how it could catch up in the intelligence-gathering game.
4. Unfortunately for him and the Iranians, the West learned of what he was up to, thanks to eavesdropping by America’s National Security Agency and its allies, and arranged for him and his whole family to be killed with help from France, Israel and the UK.
5. France arranged for Sylvain Mollier to meet him, acting as if he were an emissary from Tehran so that he could make up for his past mistakes, while Tel Aviv got its Mossad kidon going for the kill, and loads of sayonim in action to explain away what happened – like in the David Kelly murder. Brett Martin was the Brits clean-up man to make sure that nothing got out of control during the cover-up.
6. London sent enough messages about an apparent DA so that everyone knew to play it cool when it came to writing it up.
7. STV’s Lars Borgnäs got the process started in Sweden, as he had done in the Anna Lindh assassination, by getting Säpo involved in a wild-goose hunt for crazy Haydar Thaher, Mrs. al.Hilli’s brother who was then incarcerated in an English mental hospital.
8. The media in general was then too busily occupied with all kinds of predictions and stories about the final showdown by the West with Tehran to pay much attention.
Conclusion: Case closed.
=====
Excellent summary! I’d go along with most of it.
Kinda gets vague as to the hit though, a set-up or not.
Could have been that SAH regularly had meets with Sylvain over the years, thus he felt safe.
BUT, it was to be their last rendezvous. SAH may well have been going to do a flit after the meet, hence all the passports in the car, see the Manchester journalist stuff above.
Kidon were waiting to take out both, and France nor the UK nor the USA would have been informed.
The 3 would have nixed it as being far too risky.
So I think Mossad went it alone and sprung a nasty surprise – remember, our SIS chief has been visiting BIBI twice recently, to get him on some serious valium.
Why a nasty surprise? Because of panic stations, the 20 man team airlifted to Chaveline sur le Mort, and the slightly late DA notice, too late to stop initial accurate reports. See above from CRYPTONYM.
OBOMBYA is refusing to even meet with BIBI, he has just been snubbed AGAIN.
BIBI recently went apeshit and started screaming at the US ambassador.
I think BIBI said to Mossad, “F%%k ‘em, let’s show them who’s boss!”…
Yeah, that sounds about right!
😀
Presumably, classified patents are not publicly viewable?
Indeed, as they are considered state secrets. Every patent application is first vetted for its potential sensitivity, and if it is deemed sensitive, it is classified and effectively taken away from the inventor
http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/patent/p-applying/p-after/p-security/p-security-s22.htm
In that sense, you are right. Any sensitive invention – and I would strongly assume that pretty much everything pertaining to satellites is sensitive – would not be found in a search of published patents. Thus, SAH *might* have been a prolific inventor, for all we know.
@Katie
I see Ferret is still pushing , AH could have helped Saddam with his nuclear ambitions……….well no actually, what he’s overlooking is the human face in all his machinations, that being Saddam sequestered all the Al Hilli assets,was hounding & exterminating Shiites. I repeat why would someone forced out of his country by such a vile creature want to help him make & probably abuse the said nuclear weapons ?
Doeasn’t make any sense at all.
You have mentioned this several times and each time I have answered you, as I will do again now.
I have never claimed that SAH wanted to help Saddam.
I have postulated that, despite the regime, he might have wanted to help the country of his birth defend itself against its neighbour, Iran (with its own nuclear ambitions) or against Israel or the USA (both nuclear powers).
Alternatively, it is not beyond the bounds of possiblity that Saddam could have threatened SAH’s relatives who remained in Iraq with torture or worse if SAH refused to comply. I think most people in that situation would help – even if they hated the regime with a passion.
Either of these could provide a perfectly plausible motive for SAH’s helping Iraq’s nuclear programme, despite the regime.
At no point has anyone raised any sensible argument to counter either of these two hypotheses – if anyone has one, I’m keen to hear it.
It shouldn’t need saying that repeatedly stating that “SAH would not have wanted to help Saddam so therefore he didn’t” is neither logically true, nor a counter-argument to this hypotheis.
* I have never claimed that SAH wanted to help Saddam [ – yet he may have in fact done so despite not wanting to].
@Peter
Thanks – that clears that up.
@Peter
Thanks for the link. That makes me even more convinced that the Al-Hilli family had close links to the An-Naif group and I am quite sure that they were friends of Ayed Allawi as well. Ayed Allawi was Iraq’s first Prime minister in Iraq. He lived 30 years in Surrey/England (rings a bell?) and there were several assassination attempts. Ayed Allawi formed the Shia party (Iraqi National Alliance List) and – surprise, surprise, – suddenly Mrs. Al-Hilli who lived 35 years in England, is on the list of the National Alliance for becoming elected into the Parliament. Coincidence?
Of course Allawi had close contacts to MI6 and CIA (see wikipedia) and of course Allawi’s family emigrated to Surrey in 1970, too. Surprise, surprise?
So we have An-Naif, Allawi and the Al-Hilli family emigrating in 1970 to London and all of them were members of the Baath party and obviously very close (political friends?, supporters?) to former Prime Minister An-Naif.
There was an assassination attempt in Germany in 2004 when members of Ansar al-Islam tried to assassinate Allawi in Germany. However, there where whistleblowers, therefore German police was able to prevent that terror attack.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayad_Allawi
And then we have Walid Al-Hilli who cites:
“…. by the leader of the Islamic Dawa Party, Walid al-Hilli, which confirms that “freedom of expression in Iraq is better than Britain,” as it includes an explanation of ornaments ** by saying, “I lived in Britain a quarter century and worked in universities”
Oh really, that is just another Al-Hilli who had lived in Surrey for 30 years (surprise, surprise) and who is now the leader of the DAWA party in Iraq, the strongest party in the 2010 elections and – surprise, surprise – the DAWA party is the leading party of the National Alliance for whom Balsam Al-Hilli Xanthi was a candidate?
Of course, Walid Al-Hilli organised the DAWA party secretely in London where he stayed for more than 30 years (surprise, surprise) before he went to Iraq to become the leader of the DAWA party who is now the strongest party in Iraq within the National Alliance. Surprisingly, Walid Al-Hilli represents the US interests in the DAWA party.
That is ALL just coincidence?
That document was signe dby Walid Al Hilli when he was still in London working as a professor at the London University. It shows his strong support for Hezbollah.
http://www.shoebat.com/blog/tag/husseini/
And finally we should not forget Deena Al-Hilli from the QS intelligence team:
http://www.iu.qs.com/about/meet-the-team/
Summary:
The Al-Hilli family in London has and had obvious ties to the underground restitution of the DAWA party and was just waiting to get into power in Iraq after the second Iraq war.
The Al-Hilli family was no “normal” family, and even the Al-Saffar family has a senior executive working in the Bank of England.
The press didn’t report about that at all. This is not a “normal family” that was assassinated in France. They have strong family towwards the highest ranked politicians in Iraq and I am sure that if we had more time to research we would find significant links from her recent time when they all were still waiting in London for the 2nd Iraq war (2000-2003) to regain power together with their MI6/CIA friend Allawi.
My guess is that the roots for that assassination we shall find in Iraq or else those roots have todo with Hezbollah/Al Qaida.
@ Bluebird
Whoa, that is *hot* information, and it all makes perfect sense.
Some interesting links regarding Allawi (Iraq’s first prime minister and underground founder of the Shia DAWA party in England.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=5388
Biography: http://muslimvillage.com/forums/topic/5803-mr-allawi-former-baathist-former-agent-for-mi6-and-cia/
Interesting to read that Allawi informed MI6 and CIA about Mohammed Atta. Allawi emigrated in 1970 to the UK (surprise, surprise) and he was a member of the Baath party (surprise, surprise) who fell out of favour of the Baath party (surprise, surprise),
who lived for 30 years in Kingston upon Thames (Surrey) – and he is a friend of University professor of London University Walid Al-Hilli, who emigrated to England in 1970 and whose father fell out of favour with the Baath party and who lived in Surrey and who became now the leader of the DAWA party in parliament, and we have the cousin Balsam Al-Hilli Xanthi whose family emigrated from Iraq in 1970 and who lived in England and who candiadted for the DAWA party in 2012, ……. and of course that is all coincidence only and the Al-Hilli family had nothing todo with the politics in Iraq and they didn’t know that Allawi was working (according to himself) for 15 intelligence services …….
I guess we should stop here because if we are stitching deeper into this path then we are stitching into a nest of intelligence services and that would close that forum.
I maintain, that Ah was unlikely to have helped him even with that pressure, Saddam could not be trusted, he would take the knowledge/help & then execute them anyway,judging by what was going on at that time.
So, there was little to gain, especially as AH would see the very weapons he would help to build could be used against any relatives left behind.
IF…that happened which I doubt, yes it would have been a hard choice,but morally wrong for AH to have helped.
“Official Iraqi documents recovered after the fall of Saddam regime suggest a staggering 5 million executions were made during Baath era alone. Over 10 million were also imprisoned. They were all Shias save a small percentage of Kurds. It is also very interesting to note that after the 1991 Shia uprising over 300,000 were killed or captured never to be seen again, but there were no injured.”
[ I suspect he has relatives in Iran too.]
FYI:
“The friend, who spoke to Saad shortly before his holiday, said: ‘He was extremely bright and hardworking. He came into Rutherford for a work experience placement when he was studying a degree at Kingston University in 1984, and he regularly came back in the summers.'”
http://aangirfan.blogspot.fr/2012/09/saad-al-hilli-chevaline-assassination.html
I agree with Katie. Shias in Iraq have always been loyal to Iran – that’s why Saddam repeatedly punished them (and the Kurds) for their disloyalty.
I THINK FERRET should spend more time catching up about world affairs. Khomeyny always said that this nuclear business was “the Devils work” – and I can tell you that many Japanese would agree with that after Fukushima – and of course they are also the only people agaisnt who nuclear bombs were used. During the US occupation after the war, I suppose thay just went along with all this fancy stuff, and Honeywell Bull and Westinghouse made a lot of money in installing all these reactors.
SO DURING KHOMEINY’S LIFETIME there was no question of going down the nuclear route.
US intelligence reports shows repeatedly that Irans interest in mastering the fuel nuclear cycle was a response to Saddam’s efforts in that direction – and not directed at Israel — although of course Israel would say that it is directed against them. Interestingly relations between Iran and Israel has always been cordial — even during the 80’s — but that it was Israeli leaders who around 1992-93 began to see Iran as an enemy. [It ties neatly with arch-zionist lobbyist in 1993 Martin indyk initating the infamous, socalled dual containment policy, where the US suddenly found itself keeping troops ready to ‘contain’ to countries that were sworn enemys of each others. This policy is today regarded by nearly all scholars as utterly disastrous, but it fitted one country, namely Israel, who from then on had the US containing its two greatest strategic adversaries. The policy meant that the US should keep many troops close by, also in Saudi Arabia, where King Fahd was promised before the first Gulf War, that the troops would be withdrawn after Saddam had been thorwn out of Kuwait, which was that wars objective. Those troops in the country that holds the two greatest scrines in Islam — Mecca and Medina — would go on to cause alot of friction, and was a motivating factor in 9/11 (Osama Bin-Laden was a Saudi)
I always finds such shifts cruel in the extreme.
Wow.
What made me think when we see the connections between the Al-Hilli Family and Allawi:
Did Saad find some documents in the remains of his father that were hot or even hotter than we would expect they could be, and did he try to use those documents for either making money or else for political interests?
If Khaleed were a friend of Allawi, perhaps he knew or did posess something that was hot and could have chenged the world if it would come into “wrong” hands. Allawi even had information about Mohammed Atta …..
Bloomin heck BLUEBIRD !
That is quite something.
Stick with it Bluebird you are slowly coming around to my point of view . 😉
Kenneth, thanks for that.
Bluebird….
A bit of a “strange” one here. Not sure if you can enlighten me.
How “radical” was Al Hilli ?
Also DAWA “supported” Iran during the overthrow…and Iran “supported” DAWA with it’s uprising in Iraq after.
Could that “link” Al Hilli through from Iraq to Iran ?
And going back to “how radical”, is that why the elder women were in the back of the car?
Or am I “way out” ?? Unless he was meeting somebody “even more radical” that day ?
Excuse my use of the word “radical” it is just an expression.
…and there’s a hell a lot of reading up you have provided there Mr Bluebird. Thanks.
Just had a call to my Mobile asking for Rickie?? sorry to let everyone down but I am not the real Rickie Tarr and Rickie is nothing like my real name! got a bit scared then! yesterday a call from the Daily Mail to my work phone and today someone asking for Rickie on my mobile!!!
Btw, the distance between Claygate (Khaleed Al-Hilli’s home) and Kingston upon Thames (Allawi’s home) is 4.9 miles due to google maps. You could even walk that distance in less than 90 minutes.
Coincidence?