Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Putin Target, Airliners May Have Been Intercepted.

Russia air tragedy: Was Putin the target?

Considering that one of the planes was headed for Sochi where Putin was vacationing they may have been intercepted.

-Am


Fred Weir
Moscow, August 27

Russian authorities are suggesting that the accident in which two passenger liners crashed almost simultaneously and killed 90 passengers was a freak coincidence. But other experts say it was most likely a calculated act of terrorism designed to disrupt elections in Chechnya this Sunday.

Most startling is the theory that the airliners had been part of a September 11-style hijack-cum-suicide attack whose target was the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

Independent experts say the twin Tuesday night high-altitude disasters were more likely caused by onboard sabotage or, perhaps, interception by Russian air defences aiming to prevent terrorist hijackers from using the aircraft in a 9/11-style attack.

Fueling the theory that Putin was the target is that one of the planes that went down Tuesday was headed for Sochi, where Putin was vacationing at the time. The other plane was also headed south when it fell from radar screens.

Earlier this month a senior Russian air defence official, Colonel-General Yury Solovyov, warned that terrorists could hijack a plane at any Moscow airport and reach the Kremlin in about 40 seconds.

If it was terrorism, the destruction of the two airliners fits into a pattern of deadly bombings of buildings, trains and subway cars —- for which typically no one takes responsibility — that has plagued Russia since the latest war against separatist Chechnya began in 1999.

Moscow preferred to not talk of terrorism.

"The main line of inquiry we are following is violation of the rules of operating civil aircraft," said Sergei Ignatchenko, spokesperson for the Federal Security Service, which is investigating the accidents. "We are also examining the possibility of a terrorist act, but we have no evidence to support this."

Russia's crumbling civil air fleet faces daily hazards from metal fatigue, maintenance deficits and ill-trained crew.

Ignatenko said that adulterated fuel — a common consequence of cost-cutting and corruption in Russian airports — may have caused the crashes.

Analysts say authorities may be stressing the accident theory to avoid public panic in the runup to Sunday's presidential elections in Chechnya.

"Of course this series of events cannot seriously be ascribed to coincidence," says Sergei Kazyonnov of the independent Institute of National Security and Strategic Research. "Everyone understands that this is a political situation".



http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/5922_972658,0015002200000169.htm