Only three days after the Paris attacks, Russian authorities said they had evidence that the 31 October plane crash in Sinai was an act of terror. A bomb, weighing one kilo, placed inside the main cabin brought down the plane, they said. Putin promised to track down the terrorists and bring them to justice, a legitimate reaction under Article 51 of the UN Charter. Before releasing their statement, the Russians proposed that Moscow and Cairo issue a joint statement on the matter. But Egyptian officials wanted to complete the air crash investigation, carried out by an international committee, before disclosing the findings. This is what Egyptian officials told reporters once the Russians went public with their conclusions. Cairo didn't take issue with the Russian statement, but only reiterated its original position that, until the crash investigation is complete, other possibilities cannot be ruled out. At present it seems that these other possibilities, such as mechanical failure and human error, are fading out, and the Russian assertion seems to support Islamic State's (IS) claim of responsibility. The terror group has since carried out attacks in Beirut and Paris, demonstrating a change of tactics that is consistent with its need to generate publicity, either by capturing territories in Syria and Iraq or by lashing out at countries that seek to dislodge it. The change in tactics is also consistent with the beginnings of the group, when it was called Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, then acting as an affiliate of Al-Qaeda and waging a war on its behalf in Iraq. Before it splintered from Al-Qaeda, IS supported Al-Qaeda's focus on fighting Fustat Al-Kufr, or the Camp of Atheism, the title jihadists use to denigrate the Western world and its friends. Then, when IS went its own way, grabbing land and declaring a caliphate, the focus turned mostly to territorial expansion. Under pressure from Western, then Russian, aerial bombardment, and a couple of defeats at the hands of Kurdish militia in the north, IS is now falling back into the old ways of Al-Qaeda: attack soft targets abroad, confound the enemy and fuel your propaganda machine with more gore. This seems to be Al-Qaeda's guidebook, picked up and dusted off by IS leaders for a new wave of terror. If the Russian conclusions are borne out, and the current investigation reaches the same results, then something must be done about it. If IS is determined to go after civilian planes, a scourge that the world had thought was a thing of the past, then security systems at airports and planes must be refurbished, with newer technology and search methods. Any loopholes in the old system must be closed, and security must be doubled to minimise the terrorists' chances of success. With terror evolving into a global threat, the sharing of information must be complete. No country should fall behind in its efforts to track down terror. And no nation should tolerate the presence of terrorists for short-term goals. We are all in the same boat. There is no hierarchy of victimhood. If terror is to be defeated, it will only be through the concerted efforts of all those concerned, in this region and outside it.
