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.
@Ferret – yes I have seen the speculation on here about Mollier. Also the press reports of who his employer was. My approach is to concentrate on what is reported as fact then see if it makes sense, is corroborated or contradicted by what else is reported. Sure he has many possibilities which give rise to much speculation which is all good fun but nothing has been revealed or unearthed about him. And without that we cannot fit him in to help solve the puzzle.
@Stan
BM’s bike was a mountain bike and think that Mollliers would have been a racing bike!
@Stan
Not quite sure about this hafnium thing, is it radioactive..
Yes
Google for “Nuclear Isotope” – the wikipedia article explains it quite well:
Hafnium and tantalum isomers have been considered in some quarters as weapons that could be used to circumvent the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, since they can be induced to emit very strong gamma radiation. DARPA has (or had) a program to investigate this use of both nuclear isomers. The potential to trigger an abrupt release of energy from nuclear isotopes, a prerequisite to their use in such weapons, is disputed. Nonetheless a 12-member Hafnium Isomer Production Panel (HIPP) was created to assess means of mass producing the isotope.
The plant at Ugine where Mollier worked produced both Zirconium and (dun dun daaaaaah) Hafnium.
@Mark
reported as fact
contradiction in terms?
Ferret why didn’t they arrest BL or other top AQ activists ?
The question is a non starter, of course it makes sense to eliminate them, they could hardly eliminate Hicheur on a few emails, they may just have known of & seen some dangerous material change hands between the two now dead men ….. that would be hard evidence & enough proof.
Combine that with what MAY have been found in the AH shed.
When will the USA trot out its Hafnium weapon?
http://nucleardiner.com/component/communityanswers/view/16-when-will-we-unveil-our-ige-induced-gamma-emission-warheads-are-they-being-saved-for-a-rainy-day?Itemid=195
Question:
When will we unveil our IGE (Induced Gamma Emission) warheads? Are they being saved for a rainy day?
As far as I can tell, the only obstacle to large scale 178m2Hf production is cost. The U.S. government, unrestrained by any necessity to live within its means, has always prioritized the advancement of weapons technology and would not hesitate to pass such a cost on to future generations. Other nuclear isomers such as Technetium-99m are already in commercial use in the medical industry.
If a [relatively] low power X-ray can trigger an IGE chain reaction in metastable Hafnium or another material, the triggering mechanism itself – once refined – should be a fairly trivial component of the system. Therefore, production of the exotic material becomes the limiting factor. If production volume is a function of budget and budget is unlimited, it stands to reason that the U.S. government is now producing these weapons. That is, if an ultra-portable, fallout-free tactical warhead or neutron bomb trigger is something that would be desirable to a nation that seems to be perpetually on the warpath.
I don’t expect anyone with direct knowledge of this to be at liberty to comment, but I would love to hear speculation as to what’s really going on behind the scenes. If there’s anything to the rumors, I’m sure we’ll be reading about it on WikiLeaks soon enough.
In Weapons, asked by PositronPete 8 months ago
Answer:
Dr. Pat McDaniel was one of my adjunct professor’s in UNM’s nuclear engineer school and my Master’s Thesis advisor. He is one of those amazing individuals that can take difficult technical issues and make them understandable. He taught reactor neutronics and reactor control theory unfortunately he is no longer teaching at UNM which is a great loss for the nuclear engineering school. Pat tells you like it is.
So I sent him an e-mail and asked him – what was the result of the research on hafnium isomers? I also sent him information from Zimmerman’s report. He replied:
The TRIP test was completed and it did demonstrate triggering. He (Zimmerman) also has some information wrong in that 8 out of the 10 reviewers recommended the test be done when it was proposed for Berkeley. Only after Berkeley turned us down did we go to Brookhaven. The final report was distributed to all interested parties. I don’t know who this is but his comment about trying to trigger natural hafnium causes me to conclude he is relatively clueless. I’m surprised that whoever he is, he hasn’t seen a copy of the TRIP report. Shortly (about 1 month) after it was distributed, I got an e-mail from China wanting to collaborate on Collins 1999 paper in Phys Rev, so I know it got around. By the way our numbers did show that the triggering produced more energy output than was in the beam. Of course there is a huge energy deficit from the production of the beam before it gets to the target and in producing the isomer in the first place.
(email 2/4/2012)
There is more to the story – but as always it is never as clear as some make out to be.
Thank you Pat for giving us additional insights.
If someone finds the TRIP report please post it. I did find a report by Collins – the theory guy in the story – see below.
Cheers Susan
Answered by Susan 8 months ago
@stan
Hafnium metal is not radioactive. Its like you would carry a piece of copper or silver.
You need the hafnium metal as it is melted and produced in ugine for the later process in the lab to create 178m2Hf isomers.
@Katie
BL?
These guys???
LOL
😀
@ Katie
I wasn’t referring to the postman, who didn’t explicitly say anything about al-Hilli inflating tyres. However, I distinctly remember reading an article quoting one of the neighbours on either of the two camping sites saying something along the lines of “He had a problem with his tyre and was always pumping it up.” As I have said, I have been unable to find a link to that article – sorry.
I agree that it would be an odd thing to do, going on a camping holiday with a faulty tyre, but maybe he only noticed that along the way and decided that the problem wasn’t serious enough to warrant an immediate repair. Given that the tyre as shown in the press photos wasn’t completely flat, and given that the car had been standing there for a long time before the photos were taken, it must have been a slow puncture.
@Ferret
Thanks for that. Interesting stuff. Apparently Hafnium reacts in air to form a protective film that inhibits further corrosion. So it could be transported quite easily.
@Ricki Tarr
Is there any mention in the media of the bikes used. Photos etc. Or any decent photos of the area beyond the car park? I can’t find any.
http://wrightblog.dailymail.co.uk/2012/09/before-hunting-international-assassins-police-in-annecy-should-look-closer-to-home.html
That article is just about the sanest thing on these murders that I have read so far. I wonder what some (or most) of you would say if the gendarmes arrested a gun-collecting local nutter today, who committed these murders because the voices inside his head told him to and who, at the time of the killings, was blissfully unaware of the identities and backgrounds of his victims. You would simply refuse to accept that, wouldn’t you?
Yes there was definatley a mention of the bikes in the media, BM mentioned he was on a mountain bike but Moillier’s wife called it a normal bike?? If he was in the Ugine cycling club that has been mentioned but never proved I would think it was a racing bike! (as is popular in this area).
@Peter
Another Dutch visitor said the family seemed to have problems with their car because every day he saw the father pumping air into the right-hand rear tyre of the BMW.
http://www.whatsonxiamen.com/news27058.html
New photo of Al-Hilli’s car taken on last year’s camping holiday:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/09/17/article-2204459-150EAE8D000005DC-798_634x351.jpg
The cycle rack experts might find something of interest which I cannot spot however hard I squint !
Ferret…..
@Mark
reported as fact
contradiction in terms?
Belly laughing here. Has to be the best comment on here yet.
@ Ricki Tarr
Thanks, that’s the article that I meant – and it pretty much rules out any hypotheses about the tyre having been shot out by the assailant or the al-Hillis having been involved in an accident immediately prior to the murder.
@Peter – That article is just about the sanest thing on these murders that I have read so far. I wonder what some (or most) of you would say if the gendarmes arrested a gun-collecting local nutter today, who committed these murders because the voices inside his head told him to and who, at the time of the killings, was blissfully unaware of the identities and backgrounds of his victims. You would simply refuse to accept that, wouldn’t you?
Of course this can’t be ruled out. There was a very intriguing series in Grigny, Paris suburb earlier in the year. Four people shot dead over a four month period in same area. The gunman used point blank headshots and an identical calibre weapon as the Chevaline murders. The first man arrested confessed and then was released after retracting his confession, then another man was arrested and apparently charged but I cannot find anymore details of the case after that. Maybe the police are trying to draw the killer out of hiding by making him think they are looking elsewhere. I think this is less likely in the scheme of things but we will have to wait and see…….
Likewise maybe the Met should have investigated more outlandish theories rather than pinning it on an innocent ‘loner’ and banging him up for eight years.
Well the only reason I discount the Nutter is my Gut when I heard this and also that no attempt has been made to uncover a local nutter, no door to door questioning, more investigating in the UK than France!
Lack of road blocks after the incident, two shots to the head each? and no motive. The local nutter motivated by craziness rather than planning and expertise would have left more evidence and probaly the girls would not be alive now if that had been the case.
Ive been trying to find a mention in a book I read about giving witnesses like this head injuries etc to effect memory or make it so the witnesses memory is not completely trusted!
Stan;
In case that this was a state affair performed by security service, then it wont be unlikely if they would present the mad guy with IQ 45 to the media as the mass murder. Had been done so on similar previous occations quite often. We’ll see.
The thing with 178M2 Hf is the trigger to exploit that energy.
The USA was/is looking “JASON Oct ’97” but could find it then.
Infact everyone is looking “F Feodor KARPESHIN 2006” Reference below.
And they are looking at many ways of “triggering”.
It is “the holy grail” for Nukes I guess.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:zvjlthoAkyYJ:cpl.iphy.ac.cn/CN/article/downloadArticleFile.do?attachType%3DPDF%26id%3D40194+making+a+178m2Hf+isomers&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESizlDnoLPDySe4t1ucQUzz3AAMjQ_BxGhBmC5WVNzpRmoW-7-rZWGxypk7a3P2g3lbtdd0E6GQWi5RFox1Nj_UP5nExwY6BOoBBbwD61dv2750FtCY-8CmUqXe2kgJz9XKpBDre&sig=AHIEtbRZcMZjERSRwyV-mTvgSQdXFfb4Jg
@ Stan
A bit off-topic, but I think that they’ve caught the Grigny murderer by now
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoni_Palmier
I wouldn’t read too much into annually occurring naval exercises in the Gulf, and it’s just plain odd to in any way link them to the recent murders above Lake Annecy! But the human brain often works like that, I suppose, hearing two news stories and trying to connect them.
As Stephen Walt wrote yesterday ( walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/09/17/the_arab_upheavals_and_irans_nuclear_program )- given the wild reactions in the Middle East after this odd, poorly made film — imagine what the reactions would be if Iran was attacked!
And anybody who has been following the situation lately knows that the Israelis themselves are deeply divided, and a majority of them opposes it – and it is plain to everyone that it is just blustering trying to scare, and make the (very harsh [for ordinary Iranians]) sanctions credible as an alternative. And the Israelis simply don’t have the hardware to carry out an attack themselves, and everybody knows that an attack cannot destroy knowledge, it can only delay an eventual program for a few years. Add to that — as I said — the enormous uproar among ordinary people in the Mid East and the wild attacks on anything western that wild follow, and add the spiraling of the oil price past the 200 $ mark, up, up, up. and the raining down of missiles on US bases in Afghanistan and the Gulf, I think you will agree that this scenario is very unlikely, and in particular has nothing at all to do with these murders!
So stop this babbling about “Naval forces masses in the Gulf” – an expression taken straight out of a novel from C.S Forrester, and used by a scare-mongering journalist with ties to Israel, who are just acting as any member of The Israel lobby wood – by giving credence to the sanctions policy, as the least serious alternative.
http://americanintelligence.us/index.php?/blog/1/entry-20523-iaea-tries-for-new-access-in-iran/
Parchin indicates activities “may have been undertaken related to the development of nuclear explosive devices,” adding that early access “is very important to clarify this issue.”
@Kenneth….How can you be so sure there is no link? IAEA have been watching Iran very closely , and Iran have seemingly played nicely and let them poke around their Uranium enrichment plants, centrifuges etc.
They are skilled at brinkmanship and for me it makes sense to appease the IAEA by showing the centrifuges and associated hardware with Uranium, whilst keeping other enrichment technoligies quiet, e.g. laser extraction of isotopes…
I understood that Peter. Also aren’t you assuming that it’s the same tyre , remember there are 2 others we cannot see.
Iran should be embraced an worked with, – that’s how British diplomacy always solved such a trivial situation – not by putting your naked fist up in their face, before negociations even starts,and start threatening with what will happen if they do not sign on to all our wishes.
It is obvious which shitty little country and its lobby are responsible for this very undiplomatic approach, and its because of them that the US even doesn’t have an embassy in the place! I know Americans and they are very pragmatic, and magnamonious also most of them, and they would have solved this long ago, if they didn’t had their hands tied by the Israel lobby. there was this minor incident about some hostages in 1979 during the Iranian revolution, but it so happens that Iranians had very fresh memories of what the US embassy could be used for! In 1953 it was the place, from where the ousting of the democratically elected Mossadegh was conducted, and the Shah re-instated. So one can hardly blame the Iranians that they wished to insure that nothing of the sort would happen again. And hardly a single hair was curled on any hostage – maybe apart from some secretaries who had their hair done.
Mark, I like it where that in your link they say the police ‘prised open the door’, considering the window was smashed to unlock the doors, surely it opened normally ?
@Kenneth, curious I thought there had been negotiations going on for the last 18 years as they enrich uranium for domestic energy use of course..
SAH – Nuclear as well as aeronautic skill sets
Mollier – Works at a Zirconium plant, hafnium = by-product, hafnium bomb? Iran would be desperate to get hold of a new technological advancement such as this before Israel…
@ Katie
The eyewitness quoted in that article
http://www.whatsonxiamen.com/news27058.html
is quite specific: “every day he saw the father pumping air into the right-hand rear tyre of the BMW”
That fits with the photos. The aerial photo of the crime scene shows no apparent damage to the front right-hand tyre. And judging from the photos of the BMW being removed from the crime scene underneath a tarpaulin, both left-hand tyres looked okay, too.
Watcher. Iranians are very wise, on that we agree. They very well may have figured out that a bomb at this point will do them no good. at the moment Iran is stronger in conventional terms compared to any of its neighbours – and that advantage would disappear if Saudi Arabia and Egypt would start pondering about getting the weapon, as they surely would, if Iran got it. It is very possible that Iran just want to have the possibility one day to develop them, as Japan and a number of other countries have. It is their right: The West cannot in perpetuality keep people who wears turbans from developing industrially.