Russia to come down hard on Saudis, Egyptians over plane crash: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Steven D Kelley, a former CIA contractor in Los Angeles, to share his thoughts on the crash of a Russian passenger plane over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.

Following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Now that Russia is actually mentioning the possibility of this being an act of terror and a bomb explosion, the primary question is who smuggled the bomb on board and how did they do it?

Kelley: Well how they did it of course that is a great question but obviously something we have to consider when these things happen is that often there is backup, there is redundancy. So if there was a bomb on board, there was also probably a missile that was fired. They never rely on only one means of taking down an airliner like this.

I think the Russians know very well who is responsible. There are secret services, there are investigators who are very good and they are not going to mess around. So I would suspect that this is going to come down hard on the Egyptians and the Saudis.

Press TV: Well ISIS (Daesh) has actually claimed responsibility, they actually stated that they did it earlier on and if this was ISIS, what do you think are the repercussions and how is Russia going to react?

Kelley: Well certainly Russia knows that this is ISIS and Russia also knows that ISIS had to have cooperation directly from the Saudis as well as the Egyptians in order to carry this out. So the ISIS or the Daesh will certainly be receiving their punishment in the form of more impressive bombing but I suspect that the real effect of this event is going to be a much harder look at the Saudis as well as the Egyptians by the Russians.

Press TV: And what do you think ISIS is looking for and why do you think it happened in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt?

Kelley: Well this was a target of opportunity, I think, and I certainly believe that they are doing everything they can to try to punish the Russians for their very successful campaign. Of course the Russians now are going to stop flying aircraft into that part of the country so they will be eliminating this problem but I have to say that this is a rather futile attempt at punishing the Russians for what they have been doing.

Press TV: And then we already had before Russia actually, Russia’s intelligence gave the president information regarding these terrorist acts, we had the UK intelligence from the UK and the United States stating that this was in fact a terrorist act. They suspended flights from and to Egypt. So how do you think they already have this information before Russia actually who was investigating and was there on the scene along with Egyptian officials? How did they get that intelligence prior to any other?

Kelley: Well as we all know the NSA, certainly nothing is said or communicated without them being aware of this and of course yes, this was an ISIS or the ISIL action but again the Saudis and the Egyptians were very much involved and as a result that would indicate that the CIA, MOSSAD were also very heavily involved. And the day before this event we had Senator McCain plotting with people in Ukraine to carry out an event exactly like this. So I think that the people in the intelligence community know very well who is responsible for this.  

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