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UP FRONT A3
Thursday 5 November 2015
Officials Suggest Bomb May Have Downed Russian Jet
JILL LAWLESS The Kremlin guards pass flowers and toys laid at the memorial stone with the word Leningrad (St. after the crash, but British
KEN DILANIAN Petersburg) at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier outside Moscow’s Kremlin Wall in Moscow, Rus- carriers had kept to their
Associated Press sia. Mourners have been coming to St. Petersburg’s airport and other places since Saturday with schedules. Almost 1 mil-
LONDON (AP) — Brit- flowers, pictures of the victims, stuffed animals and paper planes. lion Britons visit Egypt each
ish and U.S. officials said year, many to Sharm el-
Wednesday they have (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin) Sheikh, which is also popu-
information suggesting lar with Russians.
the Russian jetliner that Egyptian investigators said the issue of security at the Sea resorts. The Metrojet flight carrying
crashed in the Egyptian Wednesday that the cock- Sharm el-Sheikh airport with The Irish Aviation Author- mostly Russian vacationers
desert may have been pit voice recorder of the Egyptian President Abdel- ity followed the British lead from Sharm el-Sheikh to St.
brought down by a bomb, Metrojet Airbus 321-200 Fattah el-Sissi, who flew to and directed Irish airlines to Petersburg broke up in the
and Britain said it was sus- had suffered substantial Britain on Wednesday for suspend flights to Sharm el- air at an altitude of 31,000
pending flights to and from damage in the weekend an official visit, Downing Sheikh Airport and into the feet 23 minutes after take-
the Sinai Peninsula indefi- crash that killed 224 peo- Street said. airspace of the Sinai Penin- off and came down in the
nitely. ple. Information from the The British disclosures were sula “until further notice.” Sinai desert, Russian offi-
Intercepted communica- flight data recorder has an embarrassment to el- The British acted “too cials said.
tions played a role in the been successfully copied Sissi, who had insisted in an soon,” said Hany Ramsay, The plane crash site, 70 ki-
tentative conclusion that and handed over to inves- interview with the BBC on deputy head of Sharm el- lometers (44 miles) south
the Islamic State group’s tigators, the Russians add- Tuesday that the security Sheikh’s airport. of the city of el-Arish, lies in
Sinai affiliate planted an ed. situation in the Sinai Penin- “Other countries might the northern Sinai, where
explosive device on the Prime Minister David Cam- Egyptian security forces
plane, said a U.S. official eron’s office said British Egyptian Military experts examine a piece of an engine at the have for years battled lo-
briefed on the matter. He aviation experts had been wreckage of a passenger jet bound for St. Petersburg in Russia cal Islamic militants.
spoke on condition of ano- sent to Sharm el-Sheikh, that crashed in Hassana, Egypt. Two U.S. officials told the
nymity because he wasn’t where the flight originated, AP on Tuesday that U.S.
authorized to discuss intel- to assess security before (Maxim Grigoriev/RMES via AP) satellite imagery detected
ligence matters publicly. British flights there would heat around the jet just be-
The official and others said be allowed to resume. sula is under “full control.” soon follow them, Ramsay fore it went down.
there had been no formal Several British flights due to He has staked his legitima- told The Associated Press, The infrared activity could
judgment rendered by the leave Sharm el-Sheikh for cy on restoring stability and suggesting there may be mean many things, includ-
CIA or other intelligence the U.K. Wednesday were reviving Egypt’s economy. political and commercial ing a bomb blast or an en-
agencies, and that fo- grounded, leaving hun- The suspension of flights is motives behind the British gine on the plane explod-
rensic evidence from the dreds of tourists stranded. a further blow to Egypt’s statement. ing due to a malfunction.
blast site, including the air- Cameron’s 10 Downing St. troubled tourism industry, “They want to hurt tourism One of the officials who
plane’s black box, was still office said late Wednesday which has suffered in the and cause confusion,” he spoke condition of ano-
being analyzed. that the team’s preliminary unrest that followed the added. nymity because they
The official added that in- report “noted that the 2011 Arab Spring. The one Several airlines, including weren’t authorized to dis-
telligence analysts don’t Egyptian authorities had bright spot for Egypt has Lufthansa and Air France, cuss the information pub-
believe the operation was stepped up their efforts but been tourism at the Red stopped flying over Sinai licly said a missile striking
ordered by Islamic State that more remains to be the jetliner was ruled out,
leaders in Raqqa, Syria. done.” Downing Steet said because neither a missile
Rather, they believe that it could not say “categori- launch nor an engine burn
if it was a bomb, it was cally” why the Russian jet had been detected.
planned and executed by had crashed. The Islamic State group
the Islamic State’s affiliate “But as more information claimed it had downed
in the Sinai, which operates has come to light, we have the plane because of Mos-
autonomously. become concerned that cow’s recent military inter-
Other officials cautioned the plane may well have vention in Syria against the
that intercepted commu- been brought down by an extremist group, but el-Sissi
nications can sometimes explosive device,” it said in dismissed that as “propa-
be misleading and that a statement. ganda” aimed at damag-
it’s possible the evidence Cameron had discussed ing Egypt’s image.
will add up to a conclusion Douglas Barrie, military
that there was no bomb. aerospace expert with the
British Foreign Secretary International Institute for
Philip Hammond said there Strategic Studies in London,
was a “significant possibil- said it was too soon to say
ity” the crash was caused for sure the cause of the
by a bomb, and Britain crash but the “general sus-
was suspending flights to picion” that an explosive
and from the Sinai resort device was involved has
of Sharm el-Sheikh indefi- been mounting. He said
nitely. After a meeting of the British government’s
the British government’s decision made sense.
crisis committee, COBRA, “It’s a decision to err on
Hammond said Britain was the side of caution if it has
advising its citizens not to been deemed possible
go on vacation to Sharm that an explosive device
el-Sheikh, which is visited was involved and there
by hundreds of thousands are concerns about the
of Britons a year. levels of security at the air-
Meanwhile, Russian and port involved,” he said. q
