Russia said on Tuesday it had stepped up air strikes against Islamist militants in Syria with long-range bombers and cruise missiles after the Kremlin said it wanted retribution for those responsible for blowing up a Russian airliner over Egypt on October 31st, killing all 224 people on board.
Russian president Vladimir Putin, visiting the defence ministry's command centre in Moscow on Tuesday evening, was told by military chiefs that the air force had carried out around 2,300 sorties in Syria in the last 48 days and that it would bolster its strike force, which consists of about 50 planes and helicopters, with a further 37 aircraft.
Putin, in footage broadcast earlier on Tuesday, had vowed to hunt down those responsible for blowing up a Russian airliner over Egypt and intensify air strikes against Islamists in Syria, after the Kremlin concluded a bomb had destroyed the plane last month.
Speaking four days after Islamist gunmen and bombers killed at least 129 people in Paris, Putin ordered the Russian navy to establish contact with a French naval force headed by an aircraft carrier in the region and to treat them as allies.
“We need to work out a plan with them of joint sea and air actions,” Putin told military chiefs.
The Kremlin said in a separate statement that Putin and his French counterpart Francois Hollande had spoken on the phone on Tuesday and agreed to boost coordination of their military actions in Syria.
Hollande is due in Moscow on November 26th to discuss the fight against Islamic State there, the presidency said in a statement on Tuesday.
Russia’s FSB security service swiftly announced a $50 million bounty in a global manhunt for the bombers.
Arrests
Egyptian authorities have detained two employees of Sharm al-Sheikh airport in connection with the downing of a Russian jet, two security officials said on Tuesday.
“Seventeen people are being held, two of them are suspected of helping whoever planted the bomb on the plane at Sharm al-Sheikh airport,” one of the officials said.
Russia’s FSB security service said on Tuesday it was certain a bomb had brought down the plane, joining Britain and the United States in reaching that conclusion.
Egypt has not yet confirmed that a bomb was responsible, saying it wants to wait until all investigations are complete.
It was not immediately clear what role the employees had at the airport, which is Egypt’s third-busiest, handling a vast number of charter and budget flights for tourists seeking sea and sun in the southern Sinai peninsula.
Since the disaster, many flights to and from Sharm al-Sheikh have been suspended, raising concerns that Egypt’s tourism industry, worth about €6.5 billion a year and still a pillar of the economy despite having fallen sharply in recent years, will be further ravaged.
Alexander Bortnikov, the head of Russia's FSB, said the conclusion of Russian investigators was that a homemade bomb containing around 1 kg of TNT had detonated during the flight, causing the plane to break up in mid-air.
“We can unequivocally say it was a terrorist act,” he said.
Egyptian ministers, led by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, were meeting in Sharm al-Sheikh on Tuesday, with a news conference expected later in the day. Russian president Vladimir Putin vowed to hunt down those responsible for the attack.
“There’s no statute of limitations for this, we need to know all of their names,” the president said. “We’re going to look for them everywhere, wherever they are hiding. We will find them in any place on Earth and punish them.”
Islamic State (IS) has claimed responsibility for bringing the Russian plane down in written statements, as well as video and audio messages posted on the internet following the crash.
It said the attack was in retaliation for Russia’s air campaign against IS — and other groups — in Syria, where Moscow wants to preserve the rule of president Bashar Assad.
The group warned Putin that it would also target him “at home” but did not offer any details to back its claim.
While releasing specifics would add credibility, the group may be withholding either because its claim is false, or because doing so would undermine plans for similar attacks in the future — or because the aura of mystery might deepen its mystique among die-hard followers.
IS has also claimed responsibility for the attacks in Paris last Friday which killed 129 people and wounded 350 others.
Agencies