Tag: Russia

Jeff Sessions is out as Attorney General. At the request of John Kelly, he submitted this resignation letter. The most interesting sentence is the first, which states, "At your request, I am submitting my resignation." How is that different than being fired? In any event, there's no reason to feel badly about Sessions' exit. Goodbye and good riddance to him.

But what about Trump's appointment of Sessions' Chief of Staff, Matthew Whitaker, to temporarily take Sessions' place as Acting Attorney General, a move intended to transfer oversight of Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the Russia investigation from Rod Rosenstein to Whitaker? Is Whitaker's appointment legal? [More…]

Russia has announced that a helicopter carrying five people (2 officers and 3 crew members) was shot down in Aleppo today. It was returning from a "humanitarian" mission.

On August 1, the Russian military transport helicopter Mi-8 was downed by ground fire on the way to the ‪#‎Hmeymim‬ airbase after delivery of humanitarian aid to the Aleppo city in the ‪#‎Idlib‬ province. There were 3 crew members and 2 officers of the Russian Centre for reconciliation of opposing sides in Syria. The fate of the Russian servicemen is being found out.

What kind of humanitarian plane has rockets on board?. See also here. The video of the burning helicopter with the rockets published by Halab TV Today is here.
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Russia last night announced the results of its investigation into the Sharm el-Sheikh plane crash in Egypt. It was a bomb. Traces of explosives were found.

Alexander Bortnikov, the chief of the country's FSB domestic security agency, said that a bomb equivalent to 2.2 pounds of TNT exploded on board the aircraft, according to the Kremlin.

"You can definitely say that this is a terrorist act," he told a meeting of Russia's Security Council on Monday.

Russia is offering a $50 million reward for information on the perpetrator(s.) And, Putin said in his announcement, Russia has no intention of letting up on its airstrikes in Syria. [More...]

Egypt is now investigating hotel workers, from maids to bellmen, to see if they helped ISIS' Wilayat Sinai bring down the Russian plane.

Turns out, the hotel security staff has been using fake metal detecting wands.

Sharm el-Sheikh now resembles a ghost town.

Apparently, what made all the governments 90% sure it was a bomb was some last second sound on the black box cockpit voice recorder. The turnaround in opinion was immediate. No one has described the sound, calling it an "unknown sound", with many assuming it was of an explosion. I'm wondering if the sound wasn't something else -- like someone shouting "Allahu Akbar", which only takes a second to say.

[Photo by Gulf Online]

Pieter Van Ostaeyen, (Historian, Arabist, and Islamist) whose analysis and musings on international Jihadism and foreign fighters I have been following for over a year, initially doubted the claim of ISIS' Wilayat Sinai that it was responsible for the Russian airplane crash in Egypt, as did many other analysts and journalists, because of the mistaken assumption that the group claimed to have shot down the plane. (the "Manpad" issue.) Now he isn't sure, but he writes that bomb or no bomb, ISIS scored a major win with the claim.

Whether or not the plane was taken down by The Islamic State, they won anyway. In the strategic battle with the West and Russia IS made a winner strike. Several European countries are repatriating their nationals, thousands of people are supposed to be leaving Sharm el-Sheikh in the next few days. Several airline operators suspended flights to the airport of Sharm el-Sheikh. Flights leaving today, made a u-turn, … Belgian tour operators even sent in their own security personnel and bomb sniffing dogs.

Intelligence experts in the U.S. and elswhere are now saying a bomb brought down the Russian airplane in Egypt. The U.K. and Ireland have suspended flights to Sharm el-Sheikh.

Wilayat Sinai released another audio message today taking credit. Here's the last part according to one translation: (dashes inserted by me)

"To the skeptics and decriers we say: die in your rage! We downed it by the grace of G-d, but we are not required to explain how we did it.

So, inspect the wreckage of the aircraft, analyze your black box, make your conclusions based on your expertise, and prove that we did not down nor else prove how it fell. Eat your hearts out! We downed it by the grace of G-d. G-d willing, we will explain how we did it at a time and manner of our own choosing.

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Terrorism theories got a boost yesterday, amid reports that US infrared satellite detected a heat flash over the Sinai at the time the Russian passenger jet went down, and statements by Kogalymavia Airlines (Metrojet in Russia) ruling out structural failure, technical defects and pilot error.

But there still are no reports of evidence of an explosive device in the debris, and it also doesn't appear anything external hit the plane. While that leaves fewer scenarios, such as a bomb on board, sabotage, or the tail falling off , it still doesn’t answer the question of whether ISIS had anything to do with the crash.[More...]

Yesterday, ISIS's Wilayat Sinai (background here) claimed responsibility for the crash of Kogalymavia Airline flight #7K9268 from the resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt to St. Petersburg, Russia, in which all 224 persons on board, including 25 children were killed. (The passenger list is here. All but 4 were Russian - 4 were Ukranian, according to the Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Ukraine.)

Russia said ISIS' claim was false and ISIS doesn't have "manpads" that can shoot down a plane at 30,000 feet. )Manpads stands for man-portable air-defense systems. ) Almost everyone is mocking ISIS' claim. But ISIS didn't say it shot the plane down. It just said it was able to bring it down. Earlier reports that the pilot had radioed of technical difficulty and intended to make an emergency landing have now been disputed by officials.

Could there have been a bomb on board? Could it have been on-board sabotage? No one knows right now. [More...]

Russia has responded to the U.S. issuing a list of sanctioned Russians yesterday by putting out its own list of U.S. officials engaged in human rights violations.

The list includes Bush torture memo author John Yoo and Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, David Addington, and some Guantanamo officials. I wonder why they left Dick Cheney off the list.

Russia's list also includes Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, who prosecuted Viktor Bout and pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko (African drug sting case.) [more...]