According to military source with experience in Vietnam, the recent sniper killings in the Washington area look like the work of a military "special operation" involving no less than two or three profesional snipers.

[click below for a disturbing analysis]

This source pointed to the timing, location and the fact that all the shooters got away without leaving a trace. He gave the example of the shootings of October 3, when no less than 4 people were killed within 2 hours. He pointed out that although they were all killed in the same general geographical area, they were too far from one another for one shooter. He estimated that three shooters would be involved. The skill in these cases is not that they killed their targets, but did it without exposing their positions, as a trained sniper would, and then got away without leaving a trace. This type of operation could not be done from a moving vehicle, because the chances of hitting the target are very low. Therefore, the fact that no one saw where the shooting came from would indicate that the shooter was in a fixed position waiting for an opportunity to shoot without giving away his position. This also would facilitate the fact that they were able to leave the scene totally undetected. If we are talking about trained sniper teams, we are talking about at least 10 people. One commander, three shooters and the others involved in the exit and or "clean up" if something goes wrong.

The source felt that this was only the beginning of the operation and eventually they would start hitting targets in Washington. The targets could then become less "random" and start targeting government employees and politicians.

WIESBADEN, Oct. 10 (EIRNS)--"SPECIAL OPS"/SECRET AGENT-AUTHORED MODELLED ON HOLLYWOOD FILMS AND/OR COMPUTER GAMES

Such are possibly what is involved, in the rash of sniper killings in Maryland and Virginia, and this can be exploited, to create the kind of climate required for the launching of the new war against Iraq, a leading British social psychologist commented to EIR today.

"I think there is mileage to be gained, in looking at what is happening, as a `special ops'-type of thing. Remember, a whole generation has been brought up on films and/or video games, with this kind of scenario. My point is, such a scenario, of shooting down people at petrol stations and so on, would make a great video game. I have, sometimes, myself seen films along these lines. It would make absolute sense to me, that special ops-type people, secret agents of one sort or another, would now be acting according to a Hollywood-style script, authored from within such circles, possibly to accomplish certain political aims."

He went on: "What worries me is, if this evolves as it appears to be evolving, is that the climate becomes such, where the word becomes that `the President is justified', in warning that there is a great threat level to the American population. It is an easy, if irrational step, to go from `this is happening', to what could loosely be called a `Bin Laden' angle of some sort.

The President would no longer seem paranoid, the threat, at home, would seem very real. Of course, I have no proof of this, but the pattern, and its potential manipulation, is ominous."