Pro-Russia rebels downed Malaysia jet: Kiev

Ukraine accused pro-Russian rebels of shooting down the MH17 Flight with 298 people aboard, sharply escalating the crisis and threatening to draw both East and West deeper into the conflict. The rebels denied downing the Malaysian Airlines’ Boeing 777. US President Barack Obama called the crash a ‘terrible tragedy’ and spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Britain asked for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Ukraine. Malaysia’s prime minister said there was no distress call before the plane went down and that the flight route was declared safe by the International Civil Aviation Organisation. It was the 2nd time a Malaysia Airlines plane was lost in four months. Malaysian Airlines Flight370 disappeared in March en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. It has not been found, but the search has been concentrated in the Indian Ocean far west of Australia. American intelligence authorities believe a surface-to-air missile brought the plane down on Thursday but were still working on who fired the missile and whether it came from the Russian or Ukrainian side of the border, a US official said. Bodies, debris and burning wreckage of the MAS (Malaysian Airlines) jet were strewn over a field near the the village of Hrabove in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Russian border, where fighting has raged for months. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called the Malaysian place crash an ‘act of terrorism.’ He insisted his forces did not shoot down the passenger jet. On the other hand, Ukrainain Separatist leader Andrei Purgin told media he was certain that Ukrainian troops had shot the plane down, but gave no explanation or proof. There have been several disputes over planes being shot down over eastern Ukraine in recent days. The rebels claimed responsibility for strikes on two Ukrainian Sukhoi-25 jets on Wednesday. Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said the 2nd jet was hit by a portable surface-to-air missile but the pilot landed safely. US Vice President Joe Biden described the Malaysian plane crash as having been ‘blown out of the sky,’ report agencies.