HOLLAND, MI (WHTC) - When it comes to targets of terrorism, it appears that there are no favored nations.
Russian investigators are considering terrorism as a possible cause of a Black Sea plane crash that killed 92 people. While defense officials downplayed a possible terror attack early on, the nation's transport minister now says the "entire spectrum" of possibilities in being considered as Russian president Vladimir Putin has ordered the prime minister to head up a commission to investigate the crash.
Coming on the heels of the assassination of the Russian ambassador to Turkey earlier this month, such concerns about terrorism are well founded, according to former US House Intelligence Committee Chairman Pete Hoekstra. "Russia has had a problem with 'radical jihadists' for years," he said recently on "WHTC Morning News" in his Holland, MI hometown, "almost as long as what the United States has had. They've had some horrific events in Russia (tied to terrorism) over the years."
Hoekstra is currently a foreign affairs consultant to Washington-based private concerns and has authored a book critical of the Obama Administration's handling of the Libyan crisis.