[RayChuang88]

The reason why I mentioned the Russian 9K33 system was the fact the Russians during the Soviet era supplied a LOT of complete 9K33 systems to a number of Middle Eastern client states--especially Syria and Iraq. The terrorists could have quietly taken enough hardware from a Syrian or Iraqi arms depot to build the jury-rigged system I described.

[Alberta's Child]

The problem is that the incident doesn’t make any sense from a logistical standpoint. If you’re a terrorist and you’re looking to shoot down a flight out of JFK Airport in New York City, that’s hardly the place you’d want to do it. For one thing, it’s much easier to do it from a location further west — much closer to the airport. Secondly, shooting down a passenger jet thousands of feet in the air is too easy to cover up and dismiss as an “accident.”