Skip to footer

ISIS bomb on Russian plane? Irish officials cancel all Egypt flights

A US intelligence source tells CNN that ISIS may have planted a bomb on the Russian flight that crashed Saturday. Irish aviation officials directed all Irish airlines on Wednesday not to fly to or from the Sinai Peninsula.

|
REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany/files
An Egyptian military helicopter flies over debris from a Russian airliner which crashed at the Hassana area in Arish city, north Egypt, in this file photograph dated November 1, 2015. Britain said on November 4, 2015 that the Russian plane that crashed in Egypt this week after taking off from the resort of Sharm al-Sheikh might have been brought down by an explosive device. "While the investigation is still ongoing we cannot say categorically why the Russian jet crashed," Prime Minister David Cameron's office said in a statement.
  • By Staff Reuters

| Dublin

The Irish aviation authority, which is taking part in the official investigation into last weekend's Russian plane crash in Egypt, directed all Irish airlines on Wednesday not to fly to or from the Sinai Peninsula until further notice.

The Russian-operated Airbus A321 that came down on Saturday killing all 224 people on board was registered in Ireland and the Irish Aviation Authority has sent an expert to take part in the official investigation.

"The Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) directs Irish airline operators not to operate to/from Sharm elSheikh Airport, Egypt or in the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula airspace until further notice," the statement said.

An Egyptian source close to the investigation on Wednesday told Reuters the cause of Saturday's crash was looking more like an explosion but that it was not clear whether it was linked to a fuel or engine trouble or a bomb.

CNN reports that a US intelligence official said:

The crash was most likely caused by a bomb on the plane planted by ISIS or an ISIS affiliate. The official stressed that there has not been a formal conclusion reached by the U.S. intelligence community. "There is a definite feeling it was an explosive device planted in luggage or somewhere on the plane," the official told CNN's Barbara Starr.

The assessment is not based on evidence obtained from the wreckage but from looking back at intelligence reports that had been gathered before Saturday's plane crash and intelligence gathered since then, CNN reported.

A bomb on board is one of three leading theories being discussed, as The Christian Science Monitor reported:

"It could have been a bomb," Paul Rogers, a global security consultant and professor at the University of Bradford in England, told the BBC. "The fact is that Russia recently intervened in Syria and … this could be a nasty blowback as far as [President Vladimir] Putin is concerned. The reality is that neither Egypt nor Russia will want to admit it involved terrorism and it may never come out fully."

(Reporting by Conor Humphries; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Gareth Jones)

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to ISIS bomb on Russian plane? Irish officials cancel all Egypt flights
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2015/1104/ISIS-bomb-on-Russian-plane-Irish-officials-cancel-all-Egypt-flights
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe