American media is reporting in the last
few hours that Ukraine International
Airlines flight 752 was hit by an
Iranian anti-aircraft missile as it left
her an airport enroute to Kiev the US
intelligence community now has
confirmation that according to the
reports which this program has not been
able to verify the aircraft is believed
have been struck by a surface-to-air
Russian built missile system the
reporting sites three unnamed American
officials their assessment the plane was
hit by mistake by Iran 176 passengers
lost their lives when the jet came down
and it happened just a few hours after
the Iranian missile attack on bases in
Iraq housing u.s. forces the reporting
says that US intelligence picked up
signals have radar systems being turned
on on the ground and that satellite
detected infrared blips
of two missile launchers and a
subsequent explosion in the last couple
of hours President Trump was asked about
what he thought had brought the plane
down I have my suspicions it was very I
don't want to say that because other
people have those suspicions also it's a
tragic thing when I see that it's a
tragic thing but somebody could have
made a mistake on the other side could
have could have made a mistake it was
flying it was it was flying in not our
system now has nothing to do with us it
was flying in a pretty rough
neighborhood and somebody could have
made a mistake some people say it was
mechanical I personally don't think
that's even a question personally and
this evening Downing Street said that it
was looking into court very concerning
reports about the Tehran airliner crash
following speculation in the media that
the jet was shot down for its part the
Iranian Civil Aviation Authority
released its preliminary report today
and said that the plane was returning to
the airport following quote a technical
problem
the parents of one of the crew members
lost holding on to each other at the
memorial in Kiev International Airport
one line in a chorus of mourning around
the world but particularly in Iran
itself among the 176 who died a large
number of Iranian students returning
after the holidays to their studies at
Canadian universities if it turns out
that the plane was shot down by mistake
by Iran itself it will have serious
questions to answer particularly from
its own citizens Irish poor Zara B and
Puna gorgey were passengers on board the
plane doing a master's in computer
science at the University of Alberta
they got married a week ago in Iran a
friend and fellow student spoke of
conversations they'd all had together
about the future me and Irish president
is a same research program he used to go
to research meetings together all the
time and talking about research talking
about their plans the things that beep
honored to do other Iranian students
today couldn't even begin to articulate
their loss
so if Iranian forces brought down that
passenger plane what will that mean for
tensions between the u.s. and Iran our
Washington correspondent Siobhan Kennedy
joins us now Siobhan well Kristin we're
getting no more answers out of the White
House or the Pentagon beyond what we're
seeing on those reports US intelligence
sources they're confirming that they do
have evidence that it was an Iranian
missile that hit that plane and knocked
it out of the sky you heard the
president they're in parks report
dismissing the notion that this was
somehow mechanical failure it was a
mistake he pointed to on the other side
the president also mentioned in his
words their black boxes now Iran is so
fast that it will not hand over the
black boxes that it has recovered from
the crash site we know that one of
those boxes is damaged which means it
may have to pass them over to Canadian
and French specialized people that
specialize in this type of accident
president trumpet said ideally though
that they would end up in the hands of
Boeing which manufactured the plane and
this may have gone unnoticed in the
chaos of the past week but four days ago
President rouhani of Iran reminded the
world in a tweet the United States
itself once accidentally shot down an
Iranian passenger jet in July 1988 that
was flying from Iran to Dubai and killed
all 290 people on board some mistakes
like this can happen even with the most
sophisticated of systems of course if it
does turn out to have been a mistake on
Iran's part there will be those who
point to America's role in all of this
that it alongside Iran was part of a
terrible chain of events that have ended
up in the downing of this u Ukrainian
plane and the death of a hundred and
seventy-six people shevawn thank you
well the US president speculation on
what walked the plane down aren't the
only comments that have been causing a
stir our international editor Lindsey
Hilsum is in Baghdad how is this going
down in the region well Christian in
this part of the world events and
mistakes and accidents change history
and often in a deadly way as Siobhan has
has just pointed out as yet there's been
no reaction from here in Baghdad but
obviously the Ukrainians it was their
plane are extremely worried a team has
been sent to Iran to try and get to the
bottom of this president zalenski has
said that he's going to be calling
President rouhani in Iran and of course
the poor Ukrainians they were the ones
who had their out their plane mh17
brought down by a Russian missile over
Donetsk several years ago but president
Trump has been talking about other
things as well he said that there are
now going to be increased sanctions on
Iran that they have already been
implemented but he didn't detail exactly
what they were here in Baghdad that is
viewed
great concern because this economy is
very dependent on the Iranian economy
the other thing he said was he talks
about the attacks last week on the
American Embassy here in the Green Zone
in Baghdad he said that they were trying
to blow up the embassy they being
Iranian backed militia well maybe they
were or maybe there weren't but last
night there were two very loud bangs I
could hear them here in my hotel those
were two possibly three Katusha rockets
that were fired at the American Embassy
they fell short they didn't hurt anybody
but they were a sign that the Iranian
backed militia here may not be standing
down as we had thought last night they
may be standing up and they may be
trying to do more against the Americans
here the French the Germans the British
they're very worried they're worried
that US forces here in the coalition
fighting Islamic state and training the
Iraqi troops they may not be able to
stay here very much longer and it will
be up to NATO and the Europeans to back
up the Iraqis in their fight against
Islamic state the American presence in
this region is in great danger tonight
Lindsey Hilsum
in Baghdad right well joining me now by
Skype from Canada is Giancarlo Fiorella
from the investigative website
Bellingham which specializes in fact
checking and open source intelligence
thanks for coming on the program
tell me from what you've seen so far
from the evidence that you've seen so
far where does this point in I would say
that it's still relatively early another
we have been working over the last 36
hours or so under verifying a couple of
images that would indicate the
involvement of a missile in this event
there were in particular two images that
show what it looks like a missile
fragment we've been working to determine
it authenticity for the last over the
last couple hours okay so just looking
in these images now I mean that one the
thing we can see now looks to some
people like a warhead but actually
having looked at the the kind of imaging
of that tall missile it's the front of
missile isn't it what does that tell you
well again we we haven't yet verified
the authenticity of these pictures so I
do want to warn that this is precisely
the kind of environment where people
have a tendency to jump to conclusions
to to read into evidence that doesn't
actually exist and so this is precisely
the moment when we have to be very
careful we don't know that these images
are from that location or that event yes
I was gonna ask you that how credible do
you think these images actually are they
could be related to this event but they
could also be from anywhere else in the
world it could be from another place in
Iran maybe they're from that area but
they're not related to the event and so
that's what the verification and the
establishment of the authenticity of the
images comes in it's a very thorough
time-consuming process and that's what
we've been dedicating most of our
attention to since these images surfaced
online so are you saying that so far use
was your concern you're not yet prepared
to basically say that the Iranian
version of events which is there was
engine failure and the plane had to
return to Tehran Airport is wrong that's
a possibility as well with the data that
we have at the moment
Belem Kent works with open source
information and we have lots of pictures
and videos from the crash site that show
all kinds of damage to the remains the
aircraft and particularly the engines
those are going to be really important
we forward with an investigation into
this event but again it's I think it's
still too early to say either way what
what it is that happened here we have to
verify all of this information that's
come in okay now your websites also been
tweeting out this picture of a bulldozer
apparently at the the cross said what is
that tell you and again what's the
veracity of that image so those images
we were able to do locate to the crash
line I found them to be really
distressing because this is potentially
a scene of a crime this was a shootout
if this was a shoot down event you don't
want to disturb the crash site before a
thorough investigation can be conducted
and I'm not sure that one so the the
presence
heavy machine bulldozing of director
very distressing
okay Giancarlo Fiorella thank you very
much need for joining us