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.
@ wally
Well it wasnt a pea shooter!
@Dopey found it finally, ta. Just wading through it.
they must be as dead as Bib Laden, OBVIOUSLY
Does it matter what gun it was ?
Wally…
Actually you win
“have you seen the bodies? where is your HARD DATA ?”
A MASSIVE …No.
And that’s laughable….as I never saw the USS Maddox either.
Nor the WMD’s quoted by Master Blair.
And looking at The Charles De G etc…. I am damn worried about this case. And that’s the truth.
Next question…… Any news of the Al-Hilli’s funerals, have they released any bodies yet apart from our little french friend ?
Seriously guys.
Wally has made a point (albeit a “rip” one).
Look at Dr Kelly.
….and where will this go ?
Your,
Very Worried.
@ james you dont need to gesture so much … it’s not a manuscript
CEZUS, DEDICATED TO ZIRCONIUM, KEY COMPONENT OF THE NUCLEAR FUEL
CEZUS, a proud member of AREVA, is a key component of the nuclear fuel cycle. Cezus is fully integrated in the manufacturing of Zirconium for complete mastering of the final product and performance.
[…]
CEZUS has its own R&D center (“CRC”) located in Ugine, France. This center is dedicated to R&D on Zirconium alloys, focusing on process and metallurgy :. It is the cornerstore of innovation and is known worldwide.
http://www.areva.com/EN/operations-942/cezus-specializing-in-zirconium.html
“The Guns of August”
by Barbara W. Tuchman. (about 1914)
Where will this go James?
What’s worrying you?
Do tell!
@Ferret …. a drive-by information dump ?
@Dopey don’t see the link to that bow hunting pic from that Europhil atricle, but interesting to uncover a bit more, although it was translated from french quite poorly, smelled of google translate
Wally…
“you dont need to gesture so much … it’s not a manuscript”
Explain please ?
…and I will make my point…as there have been many valied points made here (differences aside) I suspect we all agree.
Hence why all are here…and have had “fuelled” debates.
So Cezus produce/derive all isotopes of Zirconium and also Hafnium from Zirc. Sands based on that web page. Therefore fuel rod cladding and also control rods ?
What are you trying to say @Ferret ?
@james you and your cronies have really turned this into a mass debate alright
Roland,
“Where will this go James?
What’s worrying you?
Do tell!”
But I might sound like “Anders” !! (That is a joke).
Have you ever read that book ? A minor “thing” grows bigger ???
I read it years ago…and have always kept in in my bookshelf.
….and come on James, what have you got to be worried about?
Out with it man!
“@james you and your cronies have really turned this into a mass debate alright”
IS that bad ??? Or good ?
Do you mean you turned Xray factory and actually listened ????
So sounding like anders would be a bad thing?
I’m just a mushroom on here, with my head in the clouds.
Explain it all to me.
@duckingdafta
Thanks!
Alas the folks here are not very used to spooks invading a HOT thread. 🙂
3,000 now…
Desperation time…
My masterclass will continue. 🙂
@Guy
Sorry – context is all.
I was researching Sylvain’s background, seeing as he is flavour of the month at the moment – at least, the lack of a photo of him.
I was half hoping (ha ha) to find one on Areva’s website, and was at first interested to see they employ a mere 360 people.
I posted a good while back that it was extremely unlikely to have to nuclear scientists meeting “by chance”. Response from sceptics was (a) Cezus is a huge local employer and (b) how do you know SAH was a nuke.
So ppphhhhht to (a). It’s not huge, only a mid-size, so chance of bumping into an employee is small. (Ugine pop is over 40,000, and if say half of these are in employment, then only around 2%, or one in 50, work at Cezus.)
BUT
What really jumped out at me was that it’s entirely possible that Sylvain worked at the (presumably top-secret) R&D dept, and was not just your avg Joe on the Zirconium production line.
Sorry – typo – “…to have TWO nuclear scientists…”
‘conceptual assassination’ 3 days & counting to rake over the minutiae … those with the ‘gun’ have made their point… there will be no arrests, no conclusion … I feel sorry for RAFman.. the stooge.. how will he sleep at nights? is he reading this forum now?
Roland… I am very worried.
Please read that book. It is very good.
Do you think (and I am NO conspiracy dude) that things have changed in this world ?
The excuse for war comes ever closer.There are “once again” ships in the Gulf…awaiting the Israeli “first strike”
Israel has said “wait for what”
Is that not a worry here ? Wait for a BIG bit of “he was doing this” or “she was doing that”.
I saw this on the news when it broke, I was in an FBO in Washington D.C. and I turned to my crew (all European) and said, “This is a worry”
But I take it you have not got this “worry” ?
From small things….
The answer to the whole mystery is so unclear.
@ james ships is the gulf? really? its not been on TV 😉 where is your HARD DATA?
Sorry that was a typo, I meant nuclear.
rafMAN = GUILT & GRIEF?
@ferret
Well Bugger me !!
If they are producing Hafnium at Cezus it could be used as a nucleus of a Gamma Ray device…. the next wave of nuclear weapons. Bear with me here.
I might be way off track here but Hafnium is a bi-product of producing pure Zirconium (Good Stuff) makes a nice coating for fuel rods. Whilst Hafnium is the stuff that needs to be purified out of Zirconium to make it useful.
Hafnium has been used mainly in the past in ‘Control Rods’ (Good Stuff Too!) as it absorbs Neutrons really well. In 1999 it seems that it was discovered that bombarding Hafnium with low levels of x-rays produced the following (Bad Stuff) . ..Courtesy of the New Scientist
===============================================================
In future there may be cheaper ways to create the hafnium isomer – by bombarding ordinary hafnium with high-energy photons, for example. Hill Roberts, chief scientist at SRS, believes that technology to produce gram quantities will exist within five years.
The price is likely to be high – similar to enriched uranium, which costs thousands of dollars per kilogram – but unlike uranium it can be used in any quantity, as it does not require a critical mass to maintain the nuclear reaction.
The hafnium explosive could be extremely powerful. One gram of fully charged hafnium isomer could store more energy than 50 kilograms of TNT. Miniature missiles could be made with warheads that are far more powerful than existing conventional weapons, giving massively enhanced firepower to the armed forces using them.
The effect of a nuclear-isomer explosion would be to release high-energy gamma rays capable of killing any living thing in the immediate area. It would cause little fallout compared to a fission explosion, but any undetonated isomer would be dispersed as small radioactive particles, making it a somewhat “dirty” bomb. This material could cause long-term health problems for anybody who breathed it in.
===============================================================
Possibly a game changer for the terrorist community ?