British officials have made an unseemly leap to speculate on a terrorist plot in the Russian airliner crash over Sinai last weekend.
Russia has understandably reacted furiously to the speculation, saying that it is too early to make such an assessment when crash investigators have not even compiled, let alone evaluated, evidence.
American officials, including President Barack Obama, are also now echoing the British claims of a bomb on the plane. The question is: why the haste?
Within days of the Metrojet A321 breaking up in midair, Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron said it was "more than likely" that a bomb secreted on to the plane was the cause of the disaster, which took the lives of all 224 people onboard.