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Yet, intriguingly, the extremists initially seemed to have as little detail about what actually happened as authorities on the ground, who, in the first hours after the disaster, were unsure of the cause. Instead, in a brief and strikingly vague statement, IS condemned ‘Russian crusaders’ for their involvement in Syria, and warned that infidels ‘neither have safety in the lands of Muslims nor in their air’ and that ‘soldiers of the Caliphate were able to down a Russian airplane over Sinai province’. If anything, the implication seemed to be that they had shot down the plane from the ground, not...

Moscow, Russia – Suspicions grew over the official government story coming out of the Kremlin as Russian President Vladimir Putin and the FSB attempted to quell growing public anger and distrust in the wake of past false flag attacks. The FSB, a sinister security arm of the Russian regime, has a long history of carrying out shadowy attacks against its’ own citizenry in order to further their own military and geopolitical goals. One such series of attacks was the famed apartment bombings in Buynaksk, Moscow, & Volgodonsk of September 1999, which killed 307 Russian citizens, injured 1700 more, and was...

Business | Wed Nov 18, 2015 2:17pm EST Related: World, Russia, Aerospace & Defense, Egypt Islamic State says 'Schweppes bomb' used to bring down Russian plane CAIRO | By Ahmed Aboulenein and Lin Noueihed Islamic State's official magazine carried a photo on Wednesday of a Schweppes drink it said was used to make an improvised bomb that brought down a Russian airliner over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula last month, killing all 224 people on board. The photo showed a can of Schweppes Gold soft drink and what appeared to be a detonator and switch on a blue background, three simple components...

Egyptian officials reportedly detained 17 airport employees Tuesday, hours after the head of Russia's security service said that the crash of a passenger plane over the Sinai Peninsula last month that killed all 224 people on board was an act of terrorism. . . . "There's no statute of limitations for this, we need to know all of their names," Putin said. "We're going to look for them everywhere wherever they are hiding. We will find them in any place on Earth and punish them."

Security services fear British-born jihadis could be behind the Russian plane crash after they picked up terrorists with Birmingham and London accents celebrating disaster, it has been reported. Investigations are increasingly pointing towards a bomb causing the Metrojet flight to disintegrate in mid-air. And now it has been claimed spies at GCHQ picked up British accents among extremist "chatter" on the airwaves in the Egyptian region in the aftermath of the tragedy. A source told the Sunday Express: "There has also been some internet traffic suggesting that there was British involvement in the attack. "This was a very sophisticated, carefully...

- The Thomson flight from London Stansted only took evasive action - The pilot had spotted the missile speeding through the air - Holidaymakers were not told they had been seconds from disaster - It was just two months before a Metrojet plane crash in Sinai, killing 224 A British plane carrying 189 passengers came within 1,000ft of a rocket as it approached Sharm El Sheikh, it emerged last night. The Thomson flight from London Stansted only took evasive action after the pilot spotted the missile speeding through the air. The jet landed safely, and holidaymakers were not told they...

British officials have made an unseemly leap to speculate on a terrorist plot in the Russian airliner crash over Sinai last weekend. And Russia has understandably reacted furiously to the speculation, saying that it is too early to make such an assessment when crash investigators have not even compiled, let alone evaluated, evidence. American officials, including President Barack Obama, are also now echoing the British claims of a bomb on the plane. The question is: why the haste? ........................... Cameron and Obama are evidently being fed intelligence assessments of a bomb being stowed in the airplane's hold by terrorists. But...

Families receive news of no survivors at St. Petersburg airport. "The fighters of the Islamic State were able to down a Russian plane over Sinai province that was carrying over 220 Russian crusaders. They were all killed, thanks be to God," said a statement from the Sinai affiliate of ISIS after a Metrojet Airbus 321, carrying 217 Russian tourists and 7 crew from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg, crashed in central Sinai early Saturday morning, Oct. 31. There were no survivors. President Vladimir Putin declared Sunday a national day of mourning after sending messages of sympathy to their families. The...

An American researcher says it is highly likely that the United States is responsible for the crash of a Russian passenger plane over Egypt this week. On Saturday, the Airbus A321-200 broke up in midair and crashed in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, killing 224 people on board. An investigation is underway to find out how the disaster happened; however, the airline has said that technical faults or human errors could not have caused the tragic crash. "New information from sources with contacts in the CIA are reporting that the US recently sold ships to Egypt in return for a drone base...

The British government has suspended all flights to the UK from the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh after declaring it believes the Russian plane that crashed over Sinai may have been brought down by an explosive device. It is the first statement by any country that it believes a bomb or other device could have downed the flight, as Russian and Egyptian authorities investigate.

Unusual sounds were emitted from the plane that crashed in the Sinai Peninsula last week, according to a transcript of the cockpit recording obtained by the Russian news agency Interfax. An international investigation into the cause of the crash is currently underway and investigators are analysing the two flight data recorders for vital information about the last few moments of the flight. Interfax reports that it has obtained a transcript of one of the recordings, though this has not yet been independently verified. An unnamed source quoted by the agency said "sounds uncharacteristic of routine flight were recorded preceding the...

A bomb that downed a Russian plane in Egypt last month had been placed in the aircraft's main cabin not in the cargo compartment as reported earlier, the daily Kommersant said on Wednesday citing an unnamed source. The newspaper, citing a source close to the investigation of the crash, said the epicenter of the explosion appeared to have been at the rear of the cabin near the tail section. "According to a preliminary version, the bomb could have been laid under the passenger seat by the window. Its operation has led to the destruction of the frame and depressurization of...

The controversial satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo is under fire again, this time from Russia, AFP reported Friday. According to the news agency, the Kremlin angrily condemned the magazine for publishing political cartoons on the Metrojet plane crash in the Sinai Peninsula in which 224 people died, most of them Russian tourists. "In our country we can sum this up in a single word, sacrilege," President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists. "This has nothing to do with democracy or self-expression. It is sacrilege," he added. The Kremlin spokesman called the cartoons "unacceptable" but said Russia would not make an...

Only eight of the 29 rescue flights from Sharm El-Sheikh are expected to leave today as tourists are turned away at airport and flights suspended.

Just breaking

British investigators examining the deadly crash of a Russian passenger jet in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula last weekend believe that the plane was brought down by a bomb placed in the cargo hold, according to multiple British media reports. The BBC reported that while officials in London have not completely ruled out the possibility that Metrojet 9268 crashed due to a technical fault, they now view such a scenario as highly unlikely. Sky News reported that British intelligence operatives uncovered chatter Wednesday during a review of intercepted conversations following the Oct. 31 disaster that suggested a plot to bomb a passenger...

Russia and Egypt on Thursday dismissed suggestions by Britain and the United States that a bomb was likely to have brought down a Metrojet flight packed with Russian vacationers coming home from an Egyptian resort, saying the claim was premature. A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Peskov, insisted that aviation investigators were working on all possible theories as to why the Airbus A320-200 carrying 224 people crashed Saturday in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, killing everyone on board. He said naming just one possibility was mere speculation.

All flights to Britain from the Egyptian resort of Sharm el Sheikh have been delayed to allow security checks at the airport. A Downing Street spokesman said a team of UK experts were assessing security arrangements at the airport.

Metrojet Rules Out Technical Failure or Human Error for Crash in Sinai Peninsula By NEIL MacFARQUHAR NOV. 2, 2015 MOSCOW — Senior officials at Metrojet, the charter airline company whose Airbus passenger plane crashed in Egypt over the weekend, killing all 224 people aboard, on Monday ruled out any technical failure or human error on the part of the airline in the catastrophe. “We absolutely exclude the technical failure of the plane, and we absolutely exclude pilot error or a human factor,” Alexander A. Smirnov, a former pilot who is now the airline’s deputy director for aviation, said at a...

<p>NEW YORK (AP) -- Investigators are still trying to determine what led to the sudden and catastrophic breakup of a Metrojet plane Saturday over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, just 23 minutes after the Russian-operated jetliner took off from the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.</p>