RUSSIA has sent missile systems to Syria to protect its military forces there, the head of Russia’s air force says.
Colonel General Viktor Bondarev said fighter jets could be hijacked in countries neighbouring Syria and used to attack Russian forces.
“We have calculated all possible threats. We have sent not only fighter jets, bombers and helicopters, but also missile systems,” Bondarev told Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.
“We must be ready.”
The news comes after US intelligence officials said the explosion which brought down a Russian commercial jetliner over Egypt was likely caused by a bomb planted by Islamic State,.
It is “highly possible” that the Russian airliner that crashed in Egypt was brought down by a bomb, one US official told AFP, suggesting that evidence was beginning to support the jihadists’ otherwise vague claims of responsibility.
“There is a definite feeling it was an explosive device planted in luggage or somewhere on the plane,
The Islamic State group has insisted it brought down the Russian plane that crashed in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, providing few details but challenging sceptics to prove otherwise.
The jihadist group had claimed on Saturday that it downed the Airbus in Sinai, where its militant Egypt arm is active.
All 224 people on board the flight bound for Saint Petersburg, mainly Russian tourists, were killed.
‘A BOMB IS HIGHLY POSSIBLE’
“A bomb is a highly possible scenario,” one official told AFP. “It would be something that ISIL would want to do,” he added, using an alternate acronym for the Islamic State group.
But the official cautioned: “I am not saying it’s a definitive statement of what happened.”
The Egypt branch of IS has said it was responsible for downing the plane but provided no details, prompting scepticism about the claim.
If confirmed, it would be the first ever Islamic State bomb attack on a passenger plane.
US media reported that the latest American intelligence suggested — though it was not yet established — that IS or one of its affiliates downed the plane with a bomb.
The assessment was reached by looking at intelligence gathered before and after the plane crashed while travelling from Egypt to Russia, the official told CNN.
Washington did not have evidence of a specific threat prior to the crash. But “there had been additional activity in Sinai that had caught our attention,” the official said.
Experts say the probe into the crash will take time as they analyse recovered black boxes and wreckage that was strewn across a wide area.
BRITAIN SUSPENDS FLIGHTS
Britain suspended flights from Sharm el-Sheikh on Wednesday, saying it was concerned the airliner may have been downed by a bomb.
Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said the UK Government was now advising against all but essential travel through Sharm el-Sheikh airport as there was a “significant possibility” that a Russian plane was brought down by an explosion on board.
The strong language, against what the Russians and Egyptian authorities have been saying, and the late night travel warning change is unusual for British officials but comes in the wake of a terror attack at a Tunisian seaside resort which claimed 38 lives including 30 Britons.
Debris from the A321 Russian airliner in Wadi al-Zolomat, a mountainous area in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. Picture: AFP / Khaled DesoukiSource:AFP
Three aircraft due to fly from Sharm to Gatwick, Luton and Manchester were grounded, the latter while on the tarmac about to take off at 6.35pm local time with the captain telling passengers they had suspended all the flights and there were “no guarantees” when they could take off.
It could be days.
At this stage there was no suggestions resorts at the Red Sea were under threat or there was any call to Britons to immediately leave the area.
The move drew an immediate rebuke from Egypt with their foreign minister Sameh Shoukry telling the BBC that was “a premature and unwarranted statement” which risked devastating consequences for the country’s vital tourism industry.
Prime Minister David Cameron summoned senior ministers and security officials for a meeting of the Government’s emergency Cobra committee to discuss the latest developments.
Egyptian soldiers collect personal belongings of plane crash victims at the crash site. Picture: Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations photo via APSource:AP
The meeting comes ahead of face-to-face talks with Egyptian president Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, who is due to arrive in the UK on Thursday for a meeting scheduled before the crash.
The leaders already spoke by telephone about the crash with Mr Cameron flagging the suspension of flights.
“While the investigation is still ongoing we cannot say categorically why the Russian jet crashed,” a Number 10 spokeswoman said.
“But as more information has come to light we have become concerned that the plane may well have been brought down by an explosive device.”
Last night Easyjet grounded flights planning to leave UK for the Red Sea resort leaving more than 300 passengers at the airport awaiting further instructions. British Airways was also suspending its flights as was British carrier Thomson and the Irish Aviation Authority also ordered all Irish aircraft to avoid the area.
Egypt’s Civil Aviation Ministry has confirmed investigators had now validated the contents of the flight data recorder black boxes. It appeared there was an on-board explosion but authorities are not ruling in or out a bomb, fuel or an engine ignition.
Russian authorities have concluded the explosion may have been caused from something in the luggage hold with the plane breaking apart in midair.
There was no evidence it was struck by a rocket.
The UK’s Conservative chair of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee Crispin Blunt said the claim would act to focus Moscow’s attention on the threat posed by the extremists.
“If it does have an effect — and it’s the more positive effect, I hope, in terms of creating an international coalition against Isis — it will be that the Russians are absolutely focused on sharing our objective of destroying Islamic State on the ground in Syria and Iraq, depriving them of the territory that they hold,” he said.
PUBLICITY WARS
In an audio statement posted on social media sites on Wednesday, IS said it would announce the details of the alleged attack when it chooses.
“We are under no obligation to explain how it came down,” IS said in the statement, posted a day after it released a video showing its fighters in Iraq celebrating the incident.
“Bring the wreckage and search it, bring your black boxes and analyse them, and tell us the results of your investigation,” a man said in the recording.
“Prove that we didn’t bring it down, and how it came down. We will detail how it came down at the time of our choosing.”
The group claimed that the plane was brought down on the 17th day of the month of Muharram in the Muslim lunar calendar, the first anniversary of the Egyptian affiliate’s pledge of allegiance to IS.
Some experts have previously dismissed the terror group’s claims of responsibility, saying no evidence has yet been found of a midair explosion.
CNN reported on Wednesday that the plane’s tail was found five kilometres from the rest of the debris, suggesting it may have severed from the craft midair. CNN said the tail had been previously damaged when it struck the runway in Cairo in 2001.
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