....Pentagon officials believe

https://www.foxnews.com/world/ukrain...icials-believe

The Ukrainian passenger plane that crashed shortly after taking off from
Tehran’s international airport Wednesday was shot down by mistake by an Iranian
anti-aircraft missile, Pentagon officials told Fox News.

Officials said U.S. intelligence increasingly points at the airliner being
accidentally struck by a Russian-made missile, killing all 176 people on board
the flight, just hours after Iran fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles
targeting two military bases housing American and coalition troops.

The revelations come as Ukrainian investigators reportedly are awaiting
permission from Iranian authorities to examine the crash site and look for
missile fragments. Iran's head of civil aviation was quoted by the ISNA News
Agency as saying Thursday that it was "impossible that a missile hit the
Ukrainian plane" bound for Kiev, according to Reuters, and its officials have
blamed a technical malfunction for the aircraft’s doom.

"A strike by a missile, possibly a Tor missile system, is among the main
(theories), as information has surfaced on the internet about elements of a
missile being found near the site of the crash," Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of
Ukraine's Security Council, told Ukrainian media. He did not elaborate on where
he saw the information.

When asked Thursday about what could have happened to the Ukrainian
International Airlines flight, President Trump said he didn't believe that a
mechanical failure caused the plane crash.

"It was flying in a pretty rough neighborhood," he said. "Somebody could have
made a mistake on the other side."

The Tor is a Russian-made missile system. Russia delivered 29 Tor-M1s to Iran in
2007 as part of a $700 million contract signed in December 2005. Iran has
displayed the missiles in military parades as well.

Danilov also said other possible causes under consideration for Wednesday's
downing included a drone or another flying object crashing into the plane, a
terrorist attack or an engine malfunction causing an explosion. However, no
terror group has claimed responsibility for the attack and the plane was less
than four years old.

The crash came just a few hours after Iran launched a ballistic missile attack
against Iraqi military bases housing U.S. troops amid a confrontation with
Washington over it killing an Iranian Revolutionary Guard general in a drone
strike last week.


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