Russia suspends Egypt flights until security improves
In an abrupt turnaround, Russia on Friday suspended all passenger flights to Egypt after days of resisting U.S. and British suggestions that a bomb may have brought down a Russian plane in the Sinai Peninsula a week ago.
The move dealt a sharp blow to both countries’ tourism sectors amid fears about security in Egypt. It foretold weeks of chaos as tens of thousands of travellers struggled to return home from Red Sea resorts including Sharm el-Sheikh, where the doomed flight originated.
Within hours of the Oct. 31 crash of the Metrojet Airbus 321-200 that killed all 224 aboard — mostly Russians — a faction of the Islamic State militant group claimed to have downed the plane in retaliation for Moscow’s airstrikes that began a month earlier against fighters in Syria. The claim was initially dismissed on the grounds that the IS affiliate in Egypt’s troubled Sinai region didn’t have missiles capable of hitting high-flying planes.
British and U.S. officials, guided primarily by intelligence intercepts and satellite imagery, suggested a bomb might have been aboard the aircraft. The Russians and Egyptians called that premature, saying the investigation had not concluded.
After Britain suspended its flights to and from Sharm el-Sheikh, Prime Minister David Cameron said Thursday it was “more likely than not” that the cause was a bomb. President Barack Obama also said the U.S. was taking “very seriously” the possibility that a bomb brought down the plane in the Sinai, where Egyptian forces have been battling an Islamic insurgency for years.
As the suspicions grew, Russia appeared unwilling to countenance the possibility, and Egyptian officials played down terrorism as a cause of the crash, with President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi calling the IS claim “propaganda” designed to embarrass his government.
But on Friday, the head of Russian intelligence, Alexander Bortnikov, recommended a suspension of all flights to Egypt “until we determine the real reasons of what happened,” and President Vladimir Putin quickly agreed.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the flight suspension order would last until “a proper level of aviation security is in place,” denying it run until the investigation was completed. He added that it “definitely doesn’t mean” Russia regards terrorism as the main theory.
Wreckage from the plane was brought to Moscow to be tested for any trace of explosives, according to Emergency Situations Minister Vladimir Puchkov. The samples came “from all parts where traces of explosives could be,” he said in televised comments.