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
But then again, single shots without a silencer don’t sound like “automatic gunfire,” either.
Wrong: rapid repeat firing by an automatic, or by two people firing two automatics, could sound exactly like automatic fire.
The video of the witness on the BBC says it sounded like “pah pah pah pah pah”. This would fit perfectly with a pair of automatic pistols.
So these witnesses were probably talking through their hats.
No Peter, that’s you who’s talking through his hat! You blithely claim they must all be lying, without presenting a single shred of evidence why we should believe you.
To my mind, the HARD FACT that Mollier stopped at the scene rather than taking flight is compelling evidence that whatever noise the gun made didn’t sound like typical gunshots to him.
Say what now? You are assuming Mollier (the shot cyclist) approached the scene while the shooting was going on, or just after. Why? Maybe he was there when the shooting started!
Right now, it’s just RAFman who didn’t hear the shooting when he should have. PD has a good reason not to hear it as he’s further away, and in a car with the engine going. And Mollier could well have been there when it all kicked off.
Silencer = fabrication.
RAFman = fabrication.
Shooters as you can see ate QUICK
Mossad are trained in the Negev to be QUICK
Yes Straw, one of the articles said AH & wife rode a tandem.
@Peter
Yes, OK – sorry – guess we’re all here to develop ideas.
🙂
@Bajer
If it was low-powder 7.65 ammo then perhaps there would be entry wounds but no exit wounds – therefore no blood, brains, etc. Is this what you mean?
@Peter (again)
It it’s Luger ammo then it’s a different story, but this is not officially confirmed, only claimed to be leaked by “sources close the investigation”.
@Fiona
Maybe 7.65mm is part of the irony too… the weapon initially reported as killing JFK was a “7.65 Mauser”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AqqNKsWCGY
@James
“He” (singular)?
If it were a Luger (unconfirmed) it could have used a drum magazine which holds 32 rounds.
Dave Sevigny again shooting holes in @peckers serial idiocy 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU3jceN4JAc&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Yes James, I practice these drills. 😉
@Straw it’s deffo a tandem and can’t see granny climbing on so SAH and wife ….. or SAH and Mollier
But a “24″ plus mag, with one in the spout…and may have had a jam.
@ James
What are you saying? That he might have had a 30-round-drum magazine? Given that (a fact which I only learnt today) that at least some Luger mags for 7.65 x 21 and 9 x 19 are interchangeable, it *might* be that this 30-round “drum magazine 08” for 9×19 would also work with 7.65×21. Might be, or might not be. I don’t have either and therefore am unable to try it out.
Still, 25 shots in 30 seconds (if witnesses’ statements are anything to go by) is not that fast (see the videos posted above) and, to my mind, consistent with two magazine changes – if and only if those magazine changes were extensively practiced before
Ferret…
I have no idea.
He…as in One.
He’s … as in Two or more.
She’s…as in Three….all on a nicked Honda 125 “Brick”.
If a “one nutter”.
Why hasn’t “Ivan always loved playing with guns” been found !
If a “team”…then they aren’t going to be found.
A crazy case.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/9549098/Irans-newest-nuclear-facility-struck-by-saboteurs.html
Damaged centrifuges in Iran ? How about Lasers ..
Peter…
I agree. I dunno.
A Luger has a lumpy thing on the bottom…and to slap in a mag, is’nt that easy I guess. I have only ever fired a Browning Hi Power (flat bottom”)
So to “thwack” a mag in and drop one out (not sure of the drop on a Luger to be honest) I can not imagime would be easy.
And why not have any other weapon than that ? (if that is what it is).
“AVID GUN COLLECTOR IN ALPINE RAMPAGE”.
I just can’t see it.
Yep you can get (or make) a drum feed. But again…why a Luger ?!?!?
I just think it’s “a line”.
@pecker
The outed ballistics “expert” who has no freaking ideation that a Beretta can be unloaded circa just over a second.
2 Kidon shooters, one for backup.
This is why the first reports say witnesses heard automatic pah pah pah pah pah fire.
🙂
Two Mossad BOYZ – watch and learn m8! 😉
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEFSFn1NTWM&feature=youtube_gdata_player
WATCHER !
Forget the gun…. That’s the thing.
(Watcher 10.26)
I refer to my earlier post (God knows the time, I’m not on BST).
Just a thought to dispel shooting victims elsewhere…..they couldn’t have been because the child hid beneath the women.
So as someone has said blood went in the direction of the bullet, so doesn’t this then tell us the the trajectory of the bullet….. shooting was done from the side of the car we are looking at ?
Tribute to Iqbal from the dental practice that she was training in http://www.bakerstreetdental.com/news/alp-tragedy-women-honoured-by-colleague-3358/
I am trying to find online references to the damage that could be expected from a 7.65mm at close range to the head.
All I can find so far is reference to Hitler who shot himself in the right temple with his Walter 7.65 resulting in a small entry wound on his temple, but no exit wound.
HOWEVER
“Representatives of the Walther firm which manufactured the pistol concerned are adamant. If the muzzle was placed against the forehead as it was discharged an exit wound the size of a closed fist should be on the other side of the victim’s head. The only way the corpse could be in the condition described by the witnesses was if the shot was fired from a distance of ten or twelve feet.”
http://greyfalcon.us/restored/1935.htm
No idea how reliable this is (or not).
I will “ferret” this one out…
Anders…they are Americans !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M67a3Kcbyzw
5.30 omwards
You all “know” the story of 22Sqn on Gib Vs The PIRA
“….And the mop up team take down the “quarter back” runner !”
That’s how ya do it.
@James if any sort of gun is confirmed, even if it’s a signature weapon it doesn’t prove who was/were holding it/them.
The Hafnium angle sounds solid to me, and Iran are getting quite their moneys worth at the mo on the sabre rattling front
@Peter
However, you would expect that blood spatter to follow the trajectory of the bullet (a little spray going into the direction of where the bullet came from, but the bulk of it exiting through the exit wound, along with the bullet.)
Yes – and I would expect the spray to spread out, conically, from the exit wound. I expect it would be VERY messy if there were exit wounds and the shots were fired at close range inside the car. It would look like a bloodbath – with bits of brain all over.
And if Mollier had been shot where he was found, they’d’ve had to scrub for hours to get all the blood off the gravel… and where would they have got all the water from, up there in the woods? It’s not making any sense.
I know its a mundane detail but I was just reading hardcopy of The Times from Saturday and they say that SAH moved campsites suddenly due to an argument with neighbour over SAH parking his car on their pitch. I had not seen that reported before and can find no other references.
Also, as earlier, any ideas who the chap in civvies (shorts and T-shirt with rucksack at feet) standing by the Gendarmerie helicopter is in this photo is:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/09/06/article-2198777-14DADB77000005DC-651_964x643.jpg
Perhaps Philippe Didierjean?
Photo was in an early (6 Sept) news story.
@ James
Funnily enough, to me, you sound like the only other person in this thread whose knowledge of handguns doesn’t exclusively stem from YouTube or the general WWW.
25 rounds in 30 seconds is doable even with three mags, particularly if the shooter practiced this beforehand (which I bet he did, and which in turn would raise the question of where he did it and who saw him doing it). *If* that’s what happened, he might even have worn a “tactical magazine holder” on the wrist of his master hand (which would refute any hypotheses about this being a chance encounter following a traffic accident or some such.)
As to your “why a Luger” question, I can only reiterate my earlier guess that this type of gun, more than any other, lends itself to being fitted with a home-made silencer, e. g., the muffler of a petrol-powered lawnmower.
Watcher…
@James if any sort of gun is confirmed, even if it’s a signature weapon it doesn’t prove who was/were holding it/them.
Me also.
As for signature weapon of the ……whoever. Mid Europe is awash with them.
Now the Hf angle. Well that’s damn good. But also damn hard.
Two people in that carpark worked with the same thing. (Anders points to that many times)
And I have picked up on that…and he could be right on the money.
And to back that up, there are many “Hard Data” (I’ll post the cash later, although I am sure I said it first !) facts.
Ferret is also on the money… in a different way.
For me, chaps… if what I think will happen, happens, then it’s case closed.
But if that happens…. I will not be happy. I live away from the UK, so some of it will miss me (hopefully)…but I can see a sad connection here.
@Peter
All that the Thompson-LaGard experiment really proved is that none of the handgun loads tested were effective at killing cattle. Most of the bovines those early experimenters shot had to be put down with a sledge hammer! The conclusion that the .45 caliber pistol was superior was forgone from the outset due to the bias of the testers, and it became their official conclusion despite a startling lack of data to support it. Interestingly, the only steer put down quickly with one shot was killed by a round from the high velocity 7.65mm (.30 caliber) Luger pistol!
http://www.chuckhawks.com/beginners_stopping_power.htm
Luger = high velocity = exit wounds = mess
But no mess
Contradiction
I see an AQ shaped bow being wrapped round it nice and tight.
Peter…
I have done my time, I can tell you.
And have had to be “range drilled”…although our saying was “Fly Navy, eat crab….if some one has to shoot…get an ALM !”
Now I am “noncommercial” flyer. But as the T shirt goes “been there, done that”.
And I can say it’s not as easy as ppl think to fire that many rounds (and into people…or though a window). Looks great on the movies. But it’s not easy at all.
No-one in the Press has shouted “Terrorists” yet,why not? this is the ace in the hole to make it all go away….
Unless Iran/Israel kicks off ….
@anders7777 – just spotted your five or so attempts to get a post through the anti-spam system. If something is held back, then please wait, and we’ll get to it. It creates work otherwise for us. I deleted them all, since most of it was insulting another poster (“teletubbies”, “total crap”) anyway.
I must say am mystified at your approach to this discussion. There are plenty of considered views here, but most of your (many) posts are littered with boasts about how HARD DATA you are, or that person X is a shill, or that you are posting from the pub, or is dishing out abuse, or is littered with emoticons. Out of the various posters here, you seem to be taking the discussion the least seriously!
Please, stay on topic. Theories, facts, topics are welcome – pointless insults and accusations are not. Quality rather than quantity, again.
@Watcher
Yes, the Hafnium angle does sit rather well, doesn’t it.
Gotta go to bed now – knackered after last night’s marathon.
Good night all – see you tomorrow.
🙂
Oh…. nearly forgot.
The Luger was nicknamed “the widow maker”.
All military autos are designed for close quarters.
Meaning, if you have it drawn in anger…then it’s too late.
So the “widow maker” was mainly a “show” weapon (like the Hi Power) unless you had to use it. Then (as I say, it was too late).
But as a “show” weapon…it was good. Close up against ppl without weapons.
@Anders7777
Keep it up, I say!
🙂
And if you keep your posts to just one hyperlink they tend to go through first time…
Watcher…
Take that AQ bow further.
What is you thinking here.
Tie that in with Ferret (either Hf bomb) or mine (maybe he was a whistleBlower).
Thoughts ?
@all: just a thought. There are plenty of theories doing the rounds on the web, and I wonder if – as a tool for research – a large, printable diagram showing the possibilities would be of use. I appreciate there’s a point after which a single page cannot contain everything (there’s a whole canon of books on 9/11 theories now) but it might be good as a regularly-updated reference of “the most plausible ideas” as new facts emerge from the case.