President Putin vowed to increase Syria airstrikes after blowing Russian airline

MOSCOW- President Vladimir Putin vowed to hunt down those responsible for blowing up a Russian airliner over Egypt and intensify air strikes against ISIS militants in Syria - after the Kremlin concluded a bomb had destroyed the plane last month -killing 224 people.“The combat work of our aviation in Syria must not only be continued. It must be intensified so that the criminals understand that vengeance is inevitable,” Putin said.Russia’s security chief told President Putin that a plane carrying 224 people over Egypt’s Sinai was downed due to a “terror attack,” the Kremlin said on Tuesday. Until now, Russia had played down assertions from Western countries that the October 31 crash was the work of terrorists, saying it was important to let the official investigation run its course. But four days after ISIS gunmen and bombers killed at least 129 people in Paris, Alexander Bortnikov, the head of the FSB, told a late night meeting that traces of foreign-made explosive had been found on fragments of the downed plane and on passengers’ personal belongings.Egyptian authorities have detained two employees of Sharm al-Sheikh Airport for questioning in connection with the downing of the Russian jet, two security officials said on Tuesday.Russia on Tuesday staged a significant number of air strikes on the Islamic State group stronghold ofRaqa in the north of Syria. The attacks may have included sea-launched cruise missiles and long range bombers and gave the United States advanced warning of the attacks, a US security official saidon Tuesday.