Secret Rules To Destroy Hijacked Jets Stir Fears--Russia

From the new World Media Watch up now at http:///www.zianet.com/insightanalytical
Tomorrow at Buzzflash.com

Article summaries also in my Journal...


3//The Moscow Times, Russia Friday, March 31, 2006. Issue 3383. Page 1.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/03/31/003.html

SECRET RULES TO DESTROY HIJACKED JETS STIR FEARS

By Nabi Abdullaev, Staff Writer



After years of deliberations, Russia this month joined the handful of countries that allow hijacked airliners to be shot down to prevent the doomsday scenario of a plane slamming into a nuclear station.



The ground rules for shooting airliners -- as well as for sinking passenger ships and opening fire on terrorists in apartment buildings -- are now being drawn up by the Defense Ministry.



But they will be top secret and will most likely not make the country any safer, said independent defense experts and one of the authors of the new anti-terrorism law, which President Vladimir Putin signed on March 6.

(SNIP)


"We are stuck in a trap. The regulations in the law are vague, and I expect that Ivanov's order will contradict them, making a mess of the decision-making process," said Viktor Ilyukhin, a Communist deputy who co-drafted the anti-terrorism law in the State Duma's Security Committee.



"As a result, we cannot guarantee that a plane set to ram into the Kremlin will be shot down or that a plane that terrorists are using to blackmail the government -- without any real plans to ram it into a sensitive facility -- is spared destruction," Ilyukhin said.



The anti-terrorism law does not clearly spell out the chain of command in a hijacking crisis. As such, Ivanov's instructions are all but certain to aggravate the decision-making process.

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