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UK and US Suspect That ISIS Bomb Took Down Flight 9268 (cnn.com)
An anonymous reader writes with a report from CNN that U.S. and UK intelligence agencies believe it is more likely than not that the destruction on October 31st of a Russian A321 jetliner in Sinai "was most likely caused by a bomb on the plane planted by ISIS or an affiliate of the group." Kogalymavia Flight 9268 fell apart in flight, killing all aboard. From CNN's article:
The British government announced Wednesday that it had "become concerned that the plane may well have been brought down by an explosive device." A formal conclusion has not been reached by the intelligence communities of either country. An UK aviation team is travelling to inspect the Sharm airport to look at whether there were proper security measures at the airport and the various scenarios by which an explosive device could have made it to the Russian airliner "including a person or in cargo," according to the British transport minister.
Both Russian and Egyptian officials discount the claim, but detecting bombs is hard.
...or gross maintenance negligence. Given that Russians and Egyptians are involved...
More likely than not most likely!
I know Putin's not the "good guy" but in light of what ISIS is all about?
The fact that you're making this reach with no other input into the situation speaks more of you than it does of Putin.
Don't discount the possibility of an accident. Something very similar happened to China Airlines flight 611
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
A tail section badly repaired after a minor accident came off in mid-air. The airplane spun out of control and disintegrated before crashing into the ground. That fits this accident very well.
Without conclusive evidence of a bomb, I would be very careful to scream terrorism. Terrorists claiming responsibility doesn't mean a thing without evidence.
And what would he have to gain from that exactly? ISIS is already pretty much universally despised. I don't think he needs to do anything more to impugn their reputation.
And, anyway, the point is moot, because Russia has been going out of their way to deny it was a bombing. Pretty sure that's not consistent with the actions of a government that had intentionally staged a bombing.
So although the experts don't know what caused the crash, it seems that the British PM David Cameron does know, and it's ISIS.
In other news, Cameron wants British airstrikes on ISIS but can't get the support of parliament.
No matter how much I tell myself that correlation is not causation, this just looks like too much of a coincidence.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Justification for escalation. Full scale ground invasion, tactical nukes, who knows what he's planning?
If you'd think for a moment, that's exactly what they would do.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I would. I hate Putin, I think he's at least as evil as some of the worst leaders through history, but he's also not stupid.
Putin can get away with what he's doing becaus the Russian people support it. The Russians are however weak when it comes to standing firm when reality hits them in the face. Putin got away with what he did in Ukraine because he was able to keep the deaths of hundreds of Russian soldiers largely out of the press, and dismiss those who did tell their stories as full of shit.
He's able to get away with what he's doing in Syria because there are no boots on the ground and so hardly any risk to Russian soldiers. The chance of a shoot down at the altitude Russian sorties are being flown at is pretty negligible.
But if reality comes to bite Russians by way of a terrorist attack against them due to Putin's actions in Syria then that will be a massive blow to Putin's ability to keep up the tempo.
Russians are still raw from Afghanistan in the 80s, because whilst they were defeated largely as the Americans were in Vietnam, the defeat was felt much more greatly for the Russians because it was really the turning point at which the Soviet Union begin to see it's collapse, and that was followed by a decade (the 90s) of severe economic problems. They didn't just lose a war with Afghanistan, they lost their empire including both what little wealth they did have, and what influence in the world they had also.
The Russians want another Afganistan even less than the Americans want another Afghanistan or Iraq right now. When Russians, civilian or military, start coming home in body bags and Putin can't hide it, then Putin will come under immense pressure to reconsider his support for Assad and the Syrian regime. That's precisely why Putin and his regime are so desperate to declare this not a bomb.
But all this said, I'm not convinced it's ISIS either. If it was ISIS why now, why against Russia when British and American tourists could presumably have been just as easily targeted at the exact same airport all this time and ISIS hates the British and Americans as much as the Russians? Why on a plane so perfectly full of Russians bar the 3 Ukrainians on board? Why weren't ISIS able to say how they destroyed the plane if it was them, only claiming they shot it down, which has been dismissed as a possibility and the likely method was a bomb? I don't think any conspiracy theory involving the Americans or British is likely, it'd just be way too risky for them to get involved blowing up Russian civilians. I don't even think it's a play they'd want to make. If I had to guess I'd wager it's more likely to be anyone from Israel, to Qatar, to the Saudis - none of these countries particularly give a shit about Russia's feelings because Russia has sided with their arch enemies - Iran and Syria, and both don't want to see Assad propped up.
But who knows, I'm just guessing as much as the next guy there's a lot that's a little weird about this case though. The other possibility being of course that it simply isn't a bomb and the tail half of the plane genuinely just ripped away somehow, that too would explain why ISIS claim of blame doesn't really make any kind of sense, but then why are the British and Americans so certain of evidence of a bomb declaring they detected a heat flash and cancelling flights and so forth?
Not after the fact. If there was an explosion inside the cabin or luggage compartment, there will be internal paneling, structural members, etc., blackened and bent and peppered with explosive ejecta littering the deserts of the Sinai. That debris will look radically different from a structural failure due to metal fatigue, composite fairlures, bad repairs, etc., and will be in the wrong place to be the result of a fuel tank explosion. (And, an internal bomb will bend things out, while a missile strike will bend things in.) Making this determination in a case like this (where all of the debris should be easy to find) should be a straightforward case of air crash forensics.
It's sad! The western media, with no personnel on the ground but with their respective government agendas to advance, report news with innuendos being taken as the truth by the consuming public.
No wonder none of them took their governments to task when Iraq was being bombed years ago.
Question: Who provides reliable truthful media reports in today?
There will be copious evidence of a bomb in the wreckage - from chemical traces to the way the fragments look. Enough with the propaganda from the IC.
We haven't had a bomb go off in a plane here in the US. Perhaps they want to take our TSA force and use it abroad. I mean completely--the TSA can leave here and go work in Russia.
Are these the same intelligence agencies that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction? Trillions of dollars and millions of deaths later, I am not so fast to accept this convenient accusation.
but then why are the British and Americans so certain of evidence of a bomb declaring they detected a heat flash and cancelling flights and so forth?
Opportunism. A chance to reassure their people that they were right all along and provide the pretext for even more invasive surveillance. So much the better if no-one can prove otherwise.
Quick, everyone! Let's invade... *spins a globe* Zimbabwe!
Why bother with all the cover up and so on when you know if you poke somebody like ISIS they'll just try it anyways.
They were found a couple of days after the crash and so far, it's only "suspected" what caused the crash. One would think that the data of those black boxes would reveal what was going on.
On other plane crashes - to find the black boxes solved the cause of the crash and the reasons were published.
Now this this, what is taking so long?
Sure gives reason to speculation.
Because not all Muslims are violent terrorists? And not all Muslims wear traditional dress believe it or not.
The Master Of Muppets,
CAPTAIN: TAKE OFF EVERY "SIG"!!
Maybe, but there's similarly a risk for the US and UK in this case. If they insist it's a bomb it harms Egyptian tourism which is a major source of income for them, and they're already facing a fairly strong degree of risk in isolating Egypt. As soon as the Americans distanced themselves from Sisi when he seized power by stalling the further AH-64 Apache sales, he went wandering straight over to Russia. The last thing they want is to push Egypt into the arms of Russia when Syria, Iraq, and Iran have already moved that way. It would give Putin an axis of control right from Africa to Asia, and would provider further access to everything from the Med to the Indian Ocean to the Caspian and give Putin influence over the Suez.
Couple this with the fact that Putin wants nothing more than to put egg in the face of America and Britain and if his (and even 3rd party such as the involved French) investigators come out and say there was no bomb, then the British and American governments are only going to end up hurting that particular cause and face even more complaints of crying wolf than they already do.
I know the British and Americans are keen on their fear mongering to push anti-terrorism legislation, but I'm not convinced it's a meme that holds every single time such a thing happens. There's way too much for them to risk losing in being wrong in this particular case, it's not something where it's a domestic incident and the results have no impact outside their borders. The result of being wrong in this particular case has geopolitical consequences and that makes it a much more awkward game to play.
In that case, can you put it past CIA?
Wow, way to paint with a broad brush.
You know that Egypt's largest industry as % of GDP over the past 20 years has been tourism, right? And that millions of people visit every year wearing Western garb with absolutely no problem. Jordan,Turkey, Albania, Morocco, Malaysia, and until recently Syria and Iraq (before the West destabilized them and allowed fundamentalists to take over) are all places where wearing Western garb would be just fine.
In fact, walking through any major city in the US in Western garb, you are far more likely to be killed violently than you would be in many predominantly Muslim countries.
Devil's advocate here (and I cannot believe that I'm mentioning Putin a positive light.)
Putin wouldn't have to do anything for this to happen. It was going to happen, sooner or later, and Daesh was quite prompt to take credit for it, which they likely wouldn't do in another case.
Daesh made a big mistake. Putin keeps Russia from being overrun by his image as a strongman. Unlike the US where Daesh can hold operations at will with no fear of reprisal, Russian pride is at stake here, and Russians will not let a jetliner full of citizens go un-avenged (unlike the US where it is blamed on "guns" or ethnic groups). Bringing in the Russians means that a true army, but one trained to fight wars (and not win no-bid contracts), will be entering this conflict theater.
There could be many explanations. They could have a agent at the airport who only has access to Russian flights - or some other explanation that fits in the "opportunist" category. They could be more worried about Russian involvement since the regime was about to fall until the Russians stepped in, or some other simple explanation that fits into the "motivation to attack the Russians" category. They might fear a physical on-the-ground American presence as the result of an act of terror, whereas with the Russians this has already happened. That could fall in the "strategy" category. Who knows? But it is at least plausible.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The simplest explanation is the obvious one, payback by Sunni extremists for the recent Russian military actions in support of a Shia dictator in Syria. Russian interest in Syria goes back to the cold war, it is home to Russia's only naval base in the mediterranean. Putin is nobody's fool, his actions make much more 'sense' when you realise that Syria is to Russia what Saudi Arabia is to the US. All four nations recognise they have a common enemy in ISIS and their allies, lets hope none of them lose sight of that.
I think Putin and Obama are smart enough to realise that ISIS would be overjoyed if they could arrange for the Russians and Americans to start shooting at each other in the middle east. AQ have used the same tactic against Pakistan and India in Kashmir. ISIS are a 'psychopathic' organisation, they arose from the remnants of Saddam's (Sunni) political base in central Iraq, their end game is a global caliphate with themselves at the top, that goal makes all nations states their natural enemy, in particular their Shia dominated neighbours, Syria and Iran (who are also aligned with Russia).
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
A formal conclusion has not been reached by the intelligence communities of either country.
Am I the only one who is deeply concerned that a formal conclusion is in the hands of "the intelligence community"? How much of the government is now under the control of "the intelligence community?" Should traffic accidents be under a different jurisdiction?
If the heat flash had been a bomb they should've seen another one when the plane crashed into the ground and the fuel ignited. So seeing one heat flash would actually suggest to me it wasn't a bomb.
Cancelling flights is exactly what you expect to happen in the aftermath of MH17. The authorities will be overly careful.
Same happened after the failed attack on the Thalys high speed train. The next time somebody hid in a toilet everyone immediately assumed it was another terrorist. This is the way of public servants.
I wouldn't be the least bit surprised that some guy on the internet is talking about his ass about some hand-waving conspiracy theories.
There you go again, proving to the world you don't know the difference between a group and some of its members. As not every westerner (dressed as such) gets hated, attacked or killed, I'd say your point is well and truly destroyed.
Hint: You won't make any logical sense when you start off on a very illogical footing.
I watched a few minutes of CNN last night, they were bringing on any asshole to try to talk up the idea of a bomb on the plan. Plans can actually have internal explosions not related to a bomb. The speed at which the British trotted this bullshit out was suspect. Either they had intelligence and didn't do anything with it, or it's just a propaganda game being run by intelligence services. Either way, it's just spitting in the face of reality that people died and an investigation is required without a predisposition for the conclusion to be a bomb.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
He doesn't want to learn. He pops up in almost every thread to do with terrorism or Islam and spouts his nonsense. Sometimes the thread has nothing to do with that topic yet still he pops up, vomits his ill-informed hatred everywhere, and then disappears back into the sewers from whence he came.
Never allow logic to stand in the way of a good conspiracy theory. Even less so for a bad one.
But all this said, I'm not convinced it's ISIS either. If it was ISIS why now, why against Russia when British and American tourists could presumably have been just as easily targeted at the exact same airport all this time and ISIS hates the British and Americans as much as the Russians? Why on a plane so perfectly full of Russians bar the 3 Ukrainians on board?
I don't see any North American carriers that fly into that airport. I see:
- Turkish Airlines
- Egyptair
- Royal Jordainian
- Aeroflot
- Saudi Arabian Airlines
- Swiss International Air Lines operated by Edelweiss Air
If the plane broke up, you wouldn't have a tube full of fuel hitting the ground and burning up. Even if it was still full of fuel, the impact soul not necessarily ignite it.
Have you looked at the crash scene photos? There's a lot of luggage that appears intact, not burned to a crisp.
Devil's advocate here (and I cannot believe that I'm mentioning Putin a positive light.)
Putin wouldn't have to do anything for this to happen. It was going to happen, sooner or later, and Daesh was quite prompt to take credit for it, which they likely wouldn't do in another case.
Daesh made a big mistake. Putin keeps Russia from being overrun by his image as a strongman. Unlike the US where Daesh can hold operations at will with no fear of reprisal, Russian pride is at stake here, and Russians will not let a jetliner full of citizens go un-avenged (unlike the US where it is blamed on "guns" or ethnic groups). Bringing in the Russians means that a true army, but one trained to fight wars (and not win no-bid contracts), will be entering this conflict theater.
But Putin doesn't want to bomb Daesh. At least, not yet. Most of the bombing sorties Russia has made so far have been in support of loyalist Syrian forces against the more moderate rebels. As long as Daesh remains active in Iraq and Syria and the US stays impotent to stop them(stop pussyfooting around and trying to protect the ineffective Iraqi government; arm,support, and train the Kurds because they're the only ones with the balls to stand up to Daesh) it drives them closer to Russia and, in the case of Syria, Iran. The whole point is to erode US influence in the region. Only until that happens will Russia truly go after Daesh (they also get the added bonus that radical Chechens are currently going to Syria to fight with Daesh instead of causing trouble in Russia which has been a big source of internal trouble for Russia). So Putin has no reason for any maskirovka-esque self bombing, and even if it was a bomb it is Russia's self-interest to deny it as much as possible otherwise they might be forced to have to engage Daesh.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Pretty much stopped reading there. I know where this ends.
"Both Russian and Egyptian officials discount the claim"
You know the saying...Denial ain't just a river in Egypt...
A pox on web designers who feel that window.innerWidth == screen.availWidth
I think there are a couple things going on here. First off, Russia (as in Putin and the government) desperately wants this to be an accident or something they can at least claim to be an accident (and by accident I mean some massive mechanical failure of the plane where it spontaneously broke into pieces during the safest part of flight when cruising). A successful attack by ISIS is the last thing they want, because up to this point Russia appears strong and unassailable in their air campaign in Syria. If this was an attack by ISIS it shows that Russian people have been directly attacked and are vulnerable. So I would imagine Russia would drags its feet as much as possible in admitting it if this is indeed an attack by ISIS, although the direct involvement of so many other countries in the investigation may make that difficult.
The other thing going on is US intelligence. This crash happened in one of the most intensely watched areas of the world. Sinai is the buffer area that lies between Israel and Egypt. In addition to the US's spy satellites, drones, etc, Israel certainly has its own close surveillance of the region as well. It has already been leaked that US satellites detected a "heat flash" while the plane was at altitude. More than likely the US or Israel has direct evidence that a bomb went off in flight, but the information is too sensitive (for example, betraying just how good the US's surveillance technology is) that no one can officially and unequivocally state that it was a bomb.
That pretty much leaves one other semi-realistic scenario, which is that a repair made a long time ago has failed. Again, that is very unlikely, because a structural failure of that kind would happen when the plane is under maximum stress - during the take off and climb. Not when the plane is at altitude and cruising along with very, very little stress on the airframe. Further, pictures of the tail after the crash show the tail is still attached to the fuselage. The type of tail failures in the past with the Airbus (like flight 587) were the rudder, not the entire tail. With the Russian plane, the entire tail section was intact and attached to the rear fuselage, but separate from the plane. That is a gross failure of the entire fuselage itself, not the tail failing.
It's very likely that both the US and Russia already knows for certain what happened - if it was a bomb it would be extremely obvious from examining the wreckage.
Better known as 318230.
but in light of what ISIS is all about?
Second, that group is in a lot more places than Syria, so you should be calling them either "IS" for "Islamic State" or "ISiL" like everyone else on the goddamn planet other than the fucking moronic US-based news outlets.
I prefer Daesh because it pisses them off :)
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
But all this said, I'm not convinced it's ISIS either. If it was ISIS why now, why against Russia when British and American tourists could presumably have been just as easily targeted at the exact same airport all this time and ISIS hates the British and Americans as much as the Russians?
Well, I don't know exactly how many American and British tourists there really are in Egypt. If you're American and you go, if you don't know the risks, which have been around for more than a decade now (cough cough - ask Mexico about that if you need to), I really don't know what to say. The Russian plane was something like a regularly scheduled charter flight. Egypt either has no visa requirement for citizens of the countries that used to be in the USSR or they are something like "get one on arrival". Too lazy to see which. I know that lots of Russians like to go there for vacations because it's one of the rare places that's warm and not very sucky that they can get into without a lot of effort and trouble.
Personally, I'm not ruling out a shoddy repair job as others have speculated on. It's been known since the very late 1990s that Russian airlines outside of Aeroflot don't generally meet American and European standards in terms of safety and repair. My default reaction to any Russian airline disaster on a non-Aeroflot flight is to assume mechanical failure as that's almost always it. Or the pilot let his teenage kid accidentally fly the plane into the ground, killing everybody. Yeah, that really happened once on an infamous flight inside Russia. If you fly anywhere in the world on an airline based in Russia whose name is not Aeroflot, you assume a lot of risk.
Putin can get away with what he's doing becaus the Russian people support it... Putin got away with what he did in Ukraine because he was able to keep the deaths of hundreds of Russian soldiers largely out of the press, and dismiss those who did tell their stories as full of shit.
Yes, the Russian people support Putin, but I'm guessing that a lot of that is because he controls the media and can manufacture crises at will. In short, I think the second sentence in your quote explains the first rather than the other way around.
Look at this plot of Putin's populairity rateing. His popularity had been slowly but steadily declining from 2008 to late 2013 -- dropping to a low of ~60% around the end of that period. What happens after that? A fortuitously timed olympics that stirred patriotism, and a manufactured Ukraine crisis to amp things up further. Putin's popularity jumped to something like 85%.
Yes, a 60% approval rating is high by international standards but is low by the standards of a media-controlling leader with authoritarian tendencies. I don't think it's a coincidence that a manufactured crisis followed a steady decline to a 60% approval rating. Perhaps he saw what was happening, decided 60% was a lower limit on what he would tolerate, and brilliantly boosed it after that. (He got lucky with the timing of the olympics, which would have boosted his popularity above 60% on its own since Russia did so well at the olympics, but maybe he decided that boost wasn't enough or would be temporary.)
I was talking about the end of the last century, before they started really exploiting their natural resources. As you're apparently unaware, this is what the Russian economy looked like in the 90s:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Yes of course they've made lots of money on natural resources since, but it took 10 years before they started to see that recovery. That was an extended period of strife and growing poverty following the pullout of Afghanistan and the collapse of the USSR that isn't easily forgotten. The fact that they've grown in wealth since then is precisely why they're nervous about repeating the events that led to that, and any sign of mass casualties due to a war on foreign soil is bound to bring back bad memories and create cause for reconsideration about supporting such a policy.
"Well, I don't know exactly how many American and British tourists there really are in Egypt. If you're American and you go, if you don't know the risks, which have been around for more than a decade now (cough cough - ask Mexico about that if you need to), I really don't know what to say."
Perhaps it's a less popular destination for Americans but Sharm El Sheikh is a massively popular tourist destination for British tourists. It's largely been free from the insecurities that have plagued the rest of Egypt. Obviously it's declined since the arab spring regardless, but have a look here, there's still 300,000 people a year visiting. That's a lot of targets:
http://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news...
CIA, Saudis To Give "Select" Syrian Militants Weapons Capable Of Downing Commercial Airliners (link below). And we know all the arm drops the CIA has done hoping they get in the "right" hands has never landed in ISIS hands. Proxy war anyone? CIA payback for Ukraine or making the US look bad in Syria or.... http://www.zerohedge.com/news/...
tactical nukes, who knows what he's planning?
Tactical nukes? It's past the time to carry out a full-fledged thermonuclear sterilization of that region. That's what nukes are for: Solving difficult geopolitical problems. Let the bleeding hearts cry, but that's the only way to end this mess [of course you have convince the Chinese and Russians to look the other way - but I would think it is not that hard]
I think the exact wording from the US was that they detected an air based heat flash. Presumably it wouldn't be too difficult (someone else here no doubt has the knowledge to clarify) to determine the difference between such an event at 30,000ft, and one at ground level. I'd have thought that's a reasonable enough altitude difference to fathom from the satellite data whether the event happened in the air, or on the ground.
It's also worth noting that the plane blew up some distance from where the bulk of it ended up on the ground too, and as such it's possible that the air based heat flash was detected a mile or so away from the location that the fuel ended up such that if the location data for the heat flash is reasonable that in itself would be enough to separate the two incidents.
People support Putin because all that oil revenue and the sovereign wealth fund it created (when oil was over $100/barrel) have people feeling well-off. However, the current low oil prices are not enough to support the levels of spending by the Russian government and the sovereign wealth fund will be gone in a couple or more years. Then, austerity will bite and the people are much less likely to support Putin.
IMHO, the West's policy in the middle east has been aimed at keeping oil prices low in order to counter the threat from Putin.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
"You say "Unlike the US" but that sounds an awful lot like what happened after 9/11."
It WILL be just like what happened after 9/11, but with Russian rules of engagement. They won't hesitate to do something like drop three fuel/air bombs on Raqqa, decapitating ISIS instantly.
There is also the simple fact that there are a lot more Russian than US flights to and from the Sinai.
CNN unsurprisingly had been running hard with the bomb narrative even before they had any evidence of any kind to support it.
If people in the US government are making the claim a bomb took down flight 9268 then why the hell does this information have to be unofficially leaked to the media with no attribution? Is there no better way to communicate? The same person apparently hedges by saying "there has not been a formal conclusion" and uses weasel words like "definite feeling" ... WTF does that even mean?
The bomb narrative happens to be the most profitable one for both stated US interests against Russia's Syria adventures and CNN's ratings with all assertions carefully constructed such that they get to walk away when they are proven to be wrong.
I have no faith or reason to believe any of this conjecturbation. I'll wait for investigation by the grownups actually doing the work.
So, I'm supposed to believe that ISIS did it but unlike the other 10,000,000,000 things they've done they just conveniently forgot to release a polished video where some English-speaking nutjob pontificates on how they just struck another major blow to "the enemies of Allah"? Not buying it.
Remember the first rule of terrorist attacks: the problem isn't trying to determine *if* it was a terrorist attack, the problem is determining *which* of the 50 psychos taking responsibility for it actually did it.
Do you have ESP?
Not all Harlem residents are violent either (isn't Harlem gentrified these days?). Obviously, almost all aren't. But it only takes a few to make a violent crime wave.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
This.
FWIW, I think the US is probably doing the same thing. I they seem to be dragging their feet going after Daesh because they are a useful thorn in Assad's side, while they focus on fighting pro-Assad forces.
This makes me fear that US and Russian forces in Syria will eventually end up fighting head-to-head, perhaps without expecting it. If it does happen, oddly, it might be best if everyone just pretends it never happened rather than having to deal with the political fallout of such a crisis.
Meanwhile more than three thousand people are killed daily in traffic accidents (1.24 million per year): http://www.who.int/gho/road_sa...
And cars are just getting more powerful and fast.
This is a Daily Mail article quoting Pravda, a Russian newspaper.
Disregard the sources above for a moment, not known for being the most objective. However, look at the photos. They do show what appears to be shrapnel piercing the body from the inside out. Gives credence to the bomb theory.
Other indicators:
- USA satellite is said to detect a heat flash, probably from an explosion (could be a bomb or could be fuel tanks exploding)
- Egypt replaces the airport manager (then say, not this was not replacing, it was a promotion. Really? Days after this incident)?
- UK and USA say terrorist group chatter confirms it.
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He's able to get away with what he's doing in Syria because there are no boots on the ground and so hardly any risk to Russian soldiers. The chance of a shoot down at the altitude Russian sorties are being flown at is pretty negligible.
First of all, let me stress very strongly that I agree 100% wit everything you said, except the quote above. The thing is, Putin can get away with bombing Syrian rebels because he is very effective (compared to allied sorties) also against ISIS targets. The thing is that UK and EU public opinion is very much in favor of Russian airstrikes in Syria. I have seen BBC News stories where the comment section was flooded with messages in support of the Russian attacks (it was a story about Turkey warning Russia not to interfere in its air space). And practically all the highest-voted comments were pro-Russian strikes.
Why is Russia so much more effective than the allies (chiefly the US)? I thin because the allied sorties amount to little more than pitter-patter, as they're super-careful to not offend the Saudis and Turkey, both of whom are strong supporters of Syrian rebel groups, including Al-Nusra and apparently even ISIS. Russia doesn't give a shit about Saudi Arabia since they have their own oil and gas. They don't give much of a shit about Turkey, either (Turkey is a NATO member).
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
ISIS doesn't really have a reason to attack Russia. Russia is only performing a small amount of their attacks against ISIS as they are more concerned with helping Assad defeating the rebel groups. Essentially Assad is concentrating on the rebels and leaving ISIS to the US and it's allies. The token Russian attacks against ISIS are just to basically to say that they are there to fight ISIS.
Going into tin-foil hat territory I could see Russia bombing the airplane and letting ISIS take the blame in order to drum up support for the battle in Syria.
Why weren't ISIS able to say how they destroyed the plane if it was them, only claiming they shot it down, which has been dismissed as a possibility and the likely method was a bomb?
Actually this was identified as a mistranslation, I don't remember what it said in Arabic but the meaning was more like they "brought down" the plane, which may or may not imply shooting it down. As for whose gain it is here, take your pick. ISIS might think that Putin will bomb more indiscriminately (he will) turning more moderate Muslims to join their cause. Any western country might think he'll concentrate more on ISIS and not the other rebels threatening Assad's regime. Putin might feel he needs an excuse to justify a much larger military presence. The one who probably has most to gain is Assad, if he could pull it off but then why would ISIS try to take the credit? They don't usually do that unless they really are doing it, and it's not like they lack atrocities to actually point to.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Spot on. Mod up please!
That's strange, the oil fields, which ISIS has illegally sold the oil to Turkey, one of the most important resources of ISIS, still operated during the U.S and NATO bombing, and now stopped by Russian.
That's strange, ISIS never had to cut their beard and masked as women to flee to Arab Saudi, Turkey, until Russian bombs them.
That's strange, when Russian didn't bomb Al-Quaeda/ISIS, the Al-Quaeda claimed Syria will be Russian graveyard.
That's strange, while the West try hard to play down the role of Russia in Syria, the people in the region love Putin.
That's strange, MH17, there is no U.S satellite data, but the 9268 case, they quickly released the data of "heat flash" detected by satellite.
Of course, any conclusions right now could be considered "conspiracy". And I do NOT blame any NATO/U.S for "suspected bombing" of 9268, but I think this the opportunity to press on Putin plan on Syria, may shape public opinion about anti-bombing campaign in Syria among Russian population.
Putin gets away with it because the American Administration doesn't have the balls to stand up to him.
The last thing they want is to push Egypt into the arms of Russia when Syria, Iraq, and Iran have already moved that way.
There is no way in hell that Egypt will go to Russia. If need be US/Israel will bankroll whatever Egypt needs... assuming there's any tourism drop-off from this incident (which may or may not be the case).
Assuming the US/UK are falsely claiming a bomb, I really don't see anything they lose if they're caught lying about it.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
But if reality comes to bite Russians by way of a terrorist attack against them due to Putin's actions in Syria then that will be a massive blow to Putin's ability to keep up the tempo.
Given the current public sentiment in Russia, I would actually expect it to rather strengthen Putin's positions by demonstrating to everyone that ISIS really is a threat to Russia and Russians, and thus it needs to be dealt with swiftly and decisively.
Note also that the ongoing operation in Syria is nothing like the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan so far, and is modeled more after the various American operations in the past couple of decades - primarily air strikes, boots on the ground mostly to defend the bases, and spec ops operating behind enemy lines. Also, no conscripts. And also, unlike Afghanistan, the operation in Syria is openly acknowledged, televised etc. Basically, it was intended to be a showcase for how strong the Russia has become militarily and geopolitically under Putin, by doing something that heretofore was largely exclusive to US/NATO - successfully military intervening in some country halfway across the world.
What, crashing a plane with no survivors? I can put it past CIA, but I wouldn't put it past Bane.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
we need bad guys in order to justify "defense spending."
But you've just made the point, for Egypt not to go to Russia the US and Israel would have to bankroll them. Billions of dollars to a grossly unpopular regime back home is definitely something to lose.
"The thing is, Putin can get away with bombing Syrian rebels because he is very effective (compared to allied sorties) also against ISIS targets."
He's barely even hit ISIS targets, he's been focussing on moderates an al Qaeda, his actions have, more than anything, helped ISIS, because they've massively damaged one of ISIS enemies - moderate rebels, and in fact, as moderate rebels have been losing ground as a result of this, ISIS have been gaining ground. Putin wants to create an Assad vs. ISIS scenario to force the West to support ISIS.
Here are some sources. This map shows the pattern of Russia's bombing campaign compared to that of the West. There are a lot of maps from a lot of sources showing the same pattern if you don't trust the BBC FWIW:
http://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news...
Here's a fairly detailed analysis showing the advances:
http://www.nytimes.com/interac...
You can actually find similar evidence even on Russian news sources, although they label moderate/al Qaeda areas as ISIS, even though no one in the entire rest of the world including the people in those areas actually identify with ISIS. At best Russia's done a handful of actual strikes on ISIS to try and maintain this false credibility that it's about hitting ISIS, rather than supporting Assad and ISIS to help turn the tide in favour of Assad and force everyone to rally with him against ISIS, because the fact is, if it comes to that kind of two way fight as Putin wants, the West will have no choice but to back Assad against ISIS.
"The thing is that UK and EU public opinion is very much in favor of Russian airstrikes in Syria."
I don't think this is even remotely true. I don't know anyone in the UK or any of my friends in Europe who even remotely support Russia. Support for Russia largely exists on the fringes in groups that feel under-represented in Europe, such as far right groups like the BNP and their supporters.
"I have seen BBC News stories where the comment section was flooded with messages in support of the Russian attacks (it was a story about Turkey warning Russia not to interfere in its air space). And practically all the highest-voted comments were pro-Russian strikes."
Rather than take that as a reasonable vox pop of public opinion, you need to understand that the BBC comments section is fundamentally broken and does not even remotely represent popular opinion. It is a favour melting pot of government propagandists, and zealots. The same comments section on political stories also suggests 80% support for xenophobic and racist parties like UKIP, but actual general election day polls gave them a meagre 13%. You can't discern anything of merit from the BBC comments section, it's a cesspit of nonsense and even the moderators are part of the problem. There was a UKIPer calling Polish people a bunch of lazy spongers, and I responded saying I've actually found the Polish to be incredibly hard working, often more so than many British folk. Guess which one of us got censored and which did not? When the leanings of the moderators there (I believe the BBC contract that work out to a 3rd party company so it's not their direct staff at fault but the company they subcontract to) supports that world view, is it surprising that that view is more prominent there?
I do agree that Russia is more effective though, you're right about that, but it's largely because whilst the West at least tries (even though it regularly fails) to avoid civilian casualties, Russia just doesn't even care about them. If there's a rebel fighter in a hospital of 100 innocents, Putin is happy to see that hospital bombed to get that one fighter - he's a leader who after all openly broke the Geneva Convention and admitted to committing a war crime by removing identifying marks
There were war games being done 40 miles away. Range of air-to-air missile is 150 miles. See http://82.221.129.208/shootdow... for a graphic of the map showing where the war games were and how far the plane was, and the maximum range of an air-to-air missile.
His site is http://82.221.129.208/ and also has good commentary on other subjects.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.