224 killed in Russian airliner crash
25 children among victims; Egypt rejects Islamic State claim that it downed jet
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Manama, Bahrain — The United States ramped up its support for Syria’s opposition with a pledge of nearly $100 million in fresh aid on Saturday. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s top diplomat described the timing of the departure of Syrian President Bashar Assad and the withdrawal of foreign fighters as top sticking points to finding a lasting resolution to the civil war in Syria. Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the additional assistance at the Manama Dialogue security conference in the Gulf island nation of Bahrain, where discussion of Syria dominated the gathering of mostly Western and Arab officials. The American promise of cash, which it says brings to nearly $500 million the amount it has pledged to the opposition since 2012, came a day after the U.S. announced it was intensifying its fight against the Islamic State group in Syria with the deployment of up to 50 special operations troops.
Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt — A Russian passenger airliner crashed Saturday in a remote mountainous part of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula 23 minutes after taking off from a popular Red Sea resort, killing all 224 people on board, including 25 children.
The cause of the crash was not known, but two major European airlines announced they would stop flying over the area for safety reasons after a local affiliate of the extremist Islamic State group claimed it “brought down” the aircraft. Russia’s transport minister dismissed that claim as not credible.
Almost everyone on board the Airbus-A321-200 operated by the Moscow-based Metrojet airline was Russian; Ukraine said four of its citizens were passengers. Russian officials did not give a specific breakdown of the 217 passengers’ ages and genders, but said 25 were children. There were seven crew members.
A civil aviation ministry statement said the plane’s wreckage was found in the Hassana area some 44 miles south of the city of el-Arish, in the general area of northern Sinai where Egyptian security forces have for years battled local Islamic militants who in recent months claimed allegiance to the Islamic State group.
The ministry said the plane took off from the resort city of Sharm elSheikh shortly before 6 a.m. for St. Petersburg in Russia and disappeared from radar screens 23 minutes after takeoff. Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail toured the crash site and later told a Cairo news conference that 129 bodies had been recovered.
Photos from the site released by his office showed the badly damaged sky blue tail of the aircraft, with the Metrojet logo still visible. In the background, heaps of smoldering debris dotted the barren terrain.
One photo showed a member of the search team holding the flight recorder, or black box, which Ismail said would be scrutinized as investigators try to determine what caused the crash. Russian investigators were expected to arrive in Egypt today.
One Egyptian official, Ayman al-Muqadem of the government’s Aviation Incidents Committee, said that before the plane lost contact with air traffic controllers, the pilot had radioed and said the aircraft was experiencing technical problems and that he intended to try and land at the nearest airport.
It was impossible to independently confirm whether technical problems were to blame, and no other Egyptian official repeated the claim on Saturday.
In a statement on its website, Metrojet said the A321-200 aircraft was in good shape and that the pilot was experienced. It identified the captain as Valery Nemov and said he had 12,000 hours of flying experience, including 3,860 in A321s.
Russian Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov said officials from Moscow and Cairo were in touch over the incident. The Egyptian officials, he said, had not confirmed the claim by Islamic State militants who said they “brought down a Russian plane over Sinai state with more than 220 Russian crusaders on board.” The militant group did not provide any evidence to back up its claim.
“Based on our contacts with the Egyptian side, the information that the airplane was shot down must not be considered reliable,” Sokolov said, according to a report by the Interfax news agency.
An English-language statement issued by the office of Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi spoke of Russian leader Vladimir Putin commending the efforts made by authorities in Egypt “to uncover the circumstances surrounding the incident.”
Militants in northern Sinai have not to date shot down commercial airliners or fighter jets. There have been media reports that they have acquired Russian shoulder-fired, anti-aircraft missiles. But these types of missiles can only be effective against low-flying aircraft or helicopters. The Russian airliner was cruising at 31,000 feet when it lost contact with air traffic controllers, according to Egyptian aviation officials.