How This Alleged ISIS Plane Bombing Might Play Out
No one knows who to blame, but they know who they want to blame.
BY ROBERT BATEMAN | NOV 5, 2015 @ 5:36 PM
The first thing that should be understood about the Russian-operated, Irish-registered, French-designed, German-built airliner that went down in the Sinai Desert of Egypt on Halloween is that, as one might guess from the list of "interested parties," there will be a lot more going on here than just a crash investigation. There will be, and already are, politics involved, but the primary question seems to boil down to a basic one: Was this a terrorist attack, or was this a maintenance issue?
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When I first landed at Ras Nasrani, the airport that is now known as "Sharm El Sheik International," it was a much smaller location. This was where the Russian jet departed from on Saturday, but the facility is far more significant now. Back then there was just one terminal, and that was fairly bare-bones. Indeed, at the time—this was 1991—it was not even an international airport at all. Clearing customs involved landing in Cairo, having the papers cleared, and then continuing on down to the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula. From the airport itself it was still another 11 miles into town. Things have changed. A lot.
Back then the only tourist facility in the area was about halfway between the decidedly hardscrabbled town of Sharm and the airport at Ras Nasrani. Known as "Naama Bay," it catered to Westerners, mostly from Europe, but it, too, was not very large. About three-quarters of a mile across and maybe half a mile deep, it clings stubbornly to the edge of the desert along the Straits of Tiran, where the Red Sea meets the Gulf of Aqaba. On a bluff above this small resort was, and is, a military base. But it is not an Egyptian base; it is American. It houses a single infantry battalion and a few helicopters, as well as a multinational team of support ranging from Dutch Marines (who take care of commo), to the Italian Navy (who patrol the Straits of Tiran), and others. These forces are here as part of the 13-nation agreement to provide a multinational force on the border between Egypt and Israel, as brokered by President Carter at the Camp David Accords.
Now, as the news programs indicate, the whole area is significantly more developed, and in general terms, the whole stretch of the coast from the original port all the way up to the airport is just known as "Sharm." Indeed, all that development has now made one of the largest tourist destinations in Egypt. Europeans tend to go there in much the same way that Americans (who can afford it) head to the Caribbean. The whole stretch of the coast is now almost entirely given over to snorkeling and scuba diving. It explains why so many Russians were there, but also why several other European nations are extremely interested in the current investigation, and in that essential question: "What happened?"
The bottom line is that I do not know, and I rather suspect that whatever does come out of this investigation will be disputed by several of the parties. You really need a scorecard to keep track of this, and to help you make sense of future news. So here's the closest thing.
The Russians: Their interest is obvious, but, significantly, they are in a bit of a quandary. If this is blamed on ISIS, as some reports suggest, then one has to take the statements of an ISIS affiliate into account, and those statements claiming credit explicitly said that it was revenge for Russian activity in Syria. That puts Putin in the position of being part of the cause of the attack.
On the other hand, the Russian government (and especially the right wing) has been increasingly asserting control over large corporations, but as an international carrier nominally registered in Ireland, Metro sort of got around that rule. At the same time, it might also cause national embarrassment because of the implication that the Russians could not maintain the aircraft. So expect anything coming out of Russia to be confusing, and possibly contradictory, as Putin's government decides the result that they want to see—which is not the same thing as waiting for the evidence.
The Egyptians: They really do not want ISIS to be blamed, in no small part because that would indicate that they cannot protect people who come to their country and may not be able to control parts of their countryside. A decade ago there was a ground attack by radical Islamists in Sharm, though since that involved almost exclusively Egyptian citizens it passed from international notice after a while. (Eighty-eight people were killed and some 200 wounded in a triple bomb attack.) So they would be inclined to find a maintenance issue. The problem is that re-assembling a crashed jet is a long process, and figuring out what happened to that aircraft is even more complex. In the U.S., we are accustomed to the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board deploying a host of men and women extremely well trained in this. The Egyptians really do not have that luxury.
The French and Germans: As the designer and the builder, respectively, both countries have a "right" (under international treaties) to participate in the investigation, and each has sent a handful of investigators. What remains to be seen is how much the Egyptians will cooperate. We can look at the French and Germans together as a sort of honest broker in all this: The design is proven, and there has only ever been one incident in this type of aircraft related to a mechanical (and not pilot-induced) issue, so their joint reputation is not on the line.
The British: The Brits and the Germans probably send the most tourists to Sharm from Europe, so both countries have a motivation to get to the bottom of the issue. Today, the Prime Minister stated that all British flights to Sharm have been suspended out of "an abundance of caution." (The suspension actually started on the 4th.) The implication, spread across the British media, is that there was a good chance the Russian flight was brought down by a bomb onboard. Their source for this, it seems, has something to do with intelligence intercepts. Their version of the NSA, known as GCHQ, is just outside the town of Cheltenham, in Gloucestershire, about eight miles from where I used to live. With deep ties to their American counterparts, it seems quite possible that intelligence has been shared between the two. (Intelligence that neither the Russians nor Egyptians are likely to ever see.) This would also explain why the information coming from both governments is decidedly vague.
The United States: Technically, we have no real dog directly involved in this fight, aside from a more generic effort against terrorism everywhere. Starting yesterday morning, CNN, citing an anonymous source, put forward the idea that it was a bomb onboard. The problem here is that, due to what is known as "sources and methods," it is unlikely we will ever know specifically what "chatter" was picked up between and among some of the groups that we keep tabs on, nor how strong this source may be. Here in D.C., there are a lot of people with both big egos and vested institutional interests to make themselves or their organizations look important and/or relevant. Barbara Starr, the CNN reporter who broke the story, was careful with her own wording in the initial reporting, both to protect her source and because it would appear she did not have a "slam dunk," as it were. Inevitably, the echo-chamber took over, with CNN going almost exclusive on the story and bringing in a host of "experts." Over time, the verbiage went from "it is possible" to "it was likely," and then, for some of the 24-hour-network's hosts, it lost all caveats. Today, that started to get walked back, particularly since it appears that the "chatter" was heard after the attack, which means it just might have been discussions about how a group might claim credit—even if they didn't do it.
OK, there's your scorecard. Good luck keeping up with this.
