Although Russian officials did not breathe a word about the accident after its occurrence, domestic Russian sources and the international community immediately compared the incident with the "September 11,"attack, and they came to the conclusion that there is "amazing similarity" between the two:

Russia investigates twin plane crashes

--Same time, same place and same incident. The two air crashes occurred in the same country, in the same night and at the same time--such a coincidence seldom occurs. The incident which people deeply remember occurred in the United States on September 11, 2001. At that time, two passenger planes hijacked by terrorists dashed against the World Trade Building in several minutes, a third one bumped onto the Pentagon, and the fourth one crashed on the ground. This time, before the crash of the two passenger planes, an explosion event occurred in Moscow.

Russia investigates twin plane crashes

--Both received warning. At the time of the occurrence of the "September 11" incident, US Federal Air Traffic Administrative Bureau also issued the warning that the plane would possibly be hijacked, but various scheduled flights including the hijacked one did not want to believe this fact. This time it was the Russian Air Traffic Control Department that issued the warning to Siberia Airliner, claiming that the department had received an airplane-hijacking signal, the various airliners were asked to heighten their vigilance.

--Schemes were worked out with same meticulousness: As a matter of fact, terrorist organizations within the territory of Russia have a thousand and one links with bin Laden-led Qaeda network:: The Chechnya terrorists in Russia are the "cradle" of the Qaeda network, , many key members of which acquired actual combat experiences in Chechnya , while Chechnya terrorist organizations mostly obtain economic and personnel support from the Qaeda network, such being the case, after the Qaeda network engineered the "September 11" attack, the Chechnya terrorist forces naturally follow suit. Chechnya terrorists recently threatened that they would launch an attack on Russia with "airplanes".

Russia investigates twin plane crashes

--Both emphasized psychological deterrence: Terrorists use hijacked airplanes as attacking tools not because of the big lethal force of such planes, but because they value the dramatic psychology-shaking effect such planes produce. The targets against which terrorists used airplanes to dash were the Pentagon, the White House and the world Trade Tower, once these symbols of US politics, economy and power were attacked, what psychology-shaking force was produced is self-evident. One of the two passenger planes which crashed this time was flying to Sochi where Russian President Putin is spending his holidays.

Of course, up to the moment, Russian officials have not said that the two cases of air crash had anything to do with terrorism, and the Russian General Procuratorate does not believe that this is a terrorist action, the legal basis for starting criminal detection is the provision on traffic safety.

By People's Daily Online