The news coming out of the Russian Federation this morning is very troubling and it highlights the fact that other countries aren’t doing enough to secure their airports from terrorist takeovers or attacks.
Two commercial airliners took off from the same airport near Moscow several minutes apart and then went down three minutes apart several hours later. One of the airliners sent out a distress signal indicating that a hijacking was in progress. The Russian Emergency Ministry indicated that there were no survivors among the passengers or crew.
Russia has been fighting a bloody war in Chechnya to keep the breakaway republic as part of the Russian Federation and Chechen rebels have spread the war outside Chechnya’s borders, striking Moscow itself and several border provinces with terrorist attacks. Some of the Chechen groups are allied to al-Qaeda and get funding from Osama bin-Laden.
Those aircraft could have been rammed into the Kremlin in a 9/11-style attack or some other target.
Russian officials are eliminating other possibilities before coming out and saying that it was terrorism. Fuel problems and pilot error are being examined closely as well as the usual mechanical things that are part of crash investigations, but the hijacking distress call puts this tragedy into the “highly suspicious” category.
Terrorist attacks can happen in any country, anywhere in the world, and all governments are responsible for anti-terrorism measures to protect their citizens and foreign nationals who are on those aircraft and in those airports.
No comments:
Post a Comment