CNN reporting ISIS may have brought down Russian airliner.

In My Humble Opinion
1

U.S. intelligence suggests Russian plane crash likely caused by bomb planted by ISIS or its affiliate, U.S. official says. Watch CNNgo.

One would think ISIS would have enough sense to know better. The US exercises restraint in dealing with these issues, Russia not so much. If this is true, I seriously doubt Russia will exercise anything near restraint in their battle against them. The US can sit back and let the ISIS eradication happen courtesy of Putin. Or so I’m betting.

Anyone see any need for the US to get involved here?

Edit - linkee

2

Restraint and good judgement are not the strong suits of anyone in ISIS.

Seriously, if it does turn out to be ISIS, I wouldn’t put it past Putin to conduct WW2-style carpet bombing on an ISIS-controlled city or two to get revenge.

3

ISIS is completely loco en la cabeza. They seem to want to provoke the sleeping bears. If Putin wants to flatten ISIS, I say get out of the way. At least Putin doesn’t go around mass-murdering civilians for no good reason.

4

Russia can only hurt ISIS to the extent that they stay inside Syria to let them…or Iraq accepts them into their territory. Losing Al-Raqqah probably hurts ISIS quite a bit. How motivated ISIS is to stand and fight versus assuming more guerrilla style operations from Iraq makes a difference.

5

Not the act of total lunatics…

Revenge for Putin allying with Assad in Syria and offering arms/military assistance.

6

The Egyptians seemed anxious that it not be IS, lest terrorism mar their tourist trade.

What they fail to take into account is that terrorism would not put me off; but that getting into a plane which may of itself suddenly break up in mid-air for no good reason very definitely would.

7

Hmm, let’s see what happens when Daesh tries to poke the Russian Bear…

(Time to get a nice tub of popcorn popping…)

8

If a bear poses a threat, it is not a good idea to kill one of it’s cubs.

9

The Iraqis are on the fence about this. Many of the country’s Shi’ite militias, as well as its Shi’ite-majority political parties, love the idea of Russian airstrikes on ISIS positions inside Iraq, and are putting a great deal of pressure on al-Abadi to invite the Russians to go right ahead and do their thang.

The Americans are frantically working against it, and even managed to extract “assurances from PM al-Abadi that Russia would not fly missions against Daesh on Iraqi soil.” Some speculate that the Americans are currently ramping up their attacks on ISIS inside Iraq partly to ensure that there is no space for the Russians to butt in, and “so that the Iraqis have no possible excuse to ask the Russians for more help.”

We’ll see how it shakes out.

10

I don’t understand why there has been so much back and forth about this. There were articles the day after it happened saying that ISIS claimed responsibility for the act, yet since then there have been so many about every other possible explanation under the sun.

11

I don’t think claims of responsibility are really all that reliable. Sometimes groups lie because they like what happened even though they just wish they had done it.

12

It’s pretty routine for terrorist groups to claim responsibility for anything like this. Often multiple groups will claim it. Simply accepting those claims would be pretty poor investigatory work.

13

Cool links thanks. There’s definitely a lot to play out with two potentially supportive major powers. Iran who’s been supportive of the Shiite militias certainly has some influence with them too and likely has some preferences to whisper in ears. The possibility of it being a bomb certainly has mixed up the dynamic already.

14

Not on ISIL’s scale, no. But according to a Syrian human rights organization, Russian airstrikes have killed more civilians than ISIL fighters.

15

Tell that to people who used to live there

16

Not much to understand. There is intense pressure on each media outlet to broadcast something new every couple of hours.

Meantime the investigative authorities may have something new to say every couple of weeks.

Into that gap flows an awful lot of speculation & fabrication disguised as reporting.

17

No problem buddy!

I think the underlying dynamics were in place well before that plane came down. The Russian bombings in Syria pre-dates the crash, of course, as does both the Iraqi Shi’ite push for Russian bombing in Iraq and the American attempts to avoid such a thing.

If it is shown that, yes, it was in fact a bomb that took that plane down, Putin may perhaps put on a superficial show of “redoubled efforts” just to look tough and satisfy the Russian public’s desire for revenge, but I don’t really expect him to actually change course in any meaningful way.

Russia will most likely just keep on keepin’ on, in a campaign that is - by the way - finally looking like it might maybe be bearing some fruit after all, what with the Syrian army’s recent re-capture of the crucial supply routes around Aleppo.

Long-term, like I said, who knows how it’ll all play out…