Caucasian experts: terrorists from Northern Caucasus could blow "Kogalymavia" airbus
The version that militants from Northern Caucasus might be involved in the crash of an Airbus A321 of the "Kogalymavia" airlines cannot be ignored. This opinion was expressed by the experts interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot".
The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on October 31, the Airbus A321 of the "Kogalymavia" airlines, which was carrying out flight from Sharm el-Sheikh to Saint Petersburg, crashed in Egypt. 224 people on board were killed, including natives of Dagestan, the Krasnodar Territory, and the city of Volgograd. Militants of the "Islamic State" (IS) claimed responsibility for the plane crash.
It is unlikely that the Egyptian security services could allow loading a bomb aboard the plane. This was stated by Akhmet Yarlykapov, Senior Researcher of the Centre for Ethno-Political Studies of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). However, he did not rule out the version of the involvement of North-Caucasian militants in the incident; although, he mentioned it as a version with low probability.
Alexei Malashenko, a member of the Scientific Council of the Carnegie Moscow Centre, also does not exclude the above version concerning the involvement of North-Caucasian militants. However, he believes that the version is "unfounded".
"In case if a bomb was loaded aboard, it would have left characteristic traces after its explosion," Alexei Malashenko has noted.
In 2004, two terror acts were committed in Russia, which resulted in the crashes of Tu-154 and Tu-134 planes. 90 people were killed. Initially, Russian officials explained the disasters by technological reasons; however, later, they acknowledged that the plane crashes were caused by terror acts.
According to Orkhan Djemal, a Forbes reporter, terrorists could put something dangerous to the luggage without entering the plane.
However, all three experts have excluded the chance that the plane could be shot down by a missile.
Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.