These sudden and dramatic stories are fascinating to follow as the breathless news reports issue forth, one sometimes contradicting the other, in the first minutes and hours following the event. Confusion reigns, but early reports are particularly valuable since they may escape the information management which someitmes follows when there are potential security concerns.

In this case, in addition to the items you've mentioned, various reports portray the Russian and Ukrainian MOD's as dismissive of the missile shootdown story, while another has a Ukrainian Naval official confiding that the Army made a mistake, and shot down the plane.

Getting a bomb aboard a plane at Tel Aviv is probably about as likely as public pornography in Kabul, so if the Tu-154 really exploded in flight, there must be an agent responsible for this tragedy.

Time may tell what really happened, or it may not, but these events are always noteworthy for the information they convey, and the sideshow can be as engaging as the main event.

sp