Most of the passengers on the doomed flight were Dutch, with 154 from the Netherlands, 43 — including 15 crew and two infants — from Malaysia, 27 from Australia, 12 — including one infant — from Indonesia, nine from the U.K., four from Germany, four from Belgium, three from the Philippines, one from Canada and 41 with unconfirmed nationalities.

Fox News reported that the flight’s manifest listed 23 passengers with American citizenship.

“We are horrified by the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17,” Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement. “There are no words adequate to express our condolences to the families of the nearly 300 victims.”

“We are reviewing whether any American citizens were aboard the flight,” he added.

President Barack Obama addressed the tragedy shortly before planned remarks on infrastructure spending Thursday afternoon.

“It looks like it may be a terrible tragedy…we’re working to determine whether or not there were American citizens on board,” President Barack Obama said. “That is our first priority.”

Obama called President Poroshenko of Ukraine Thursday evening to offer assistance and emphasized that all evidence from the crash site must remain in place until international investigators arrive.

However, pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine said they had found MH17’s “black box.” A Russian radio station reported that the “black box” was traveling to Moscow “for investigation.”

“This is truly a grave situation,” Vice President Joe Biden said, speaking in Detroit. “It’s important we get to the bottom of this sooner than later because of the possible repercussions that can flow beyond from this, beyond the tragic loss of life.”

Kerry later added that the U.S. is willing to assist with the investigation.

“The United States Government remains prepared to assist with a credible, international investigation any way we can, and we will continue to be in touch with all relevant partners as we seek the facts of what happened today,” he said.

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From left, SEB, or Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken Chairman Marcus Wallenberg, Treasurer of Australia Joe Hockey, GE Global Growth and Operations CEO John Rice and OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria hold a minute of silence for the victims of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 that went down in war-torn Ukraine, at the B20 Australia Summit in Sydney, Friday, July 18, 2014.

In this photo taken Thursday, July 17, 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, and members of his government observe a moment of silence mourning the victims killed in the Malaysia Airlines plane crash on Thursday in Donetsk region of Ukraine prior a meeting at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow

An electronic board displaying "Pray for MH17" at the departure hall at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang, Malaysia, Friday, July 18, 2014. Malaysia Airlines has increased the death toll from Flight 17 that was shot down over war-torn eastern Ukraine on Thursday to 298 from 295, saying that three infants had not been included in the original list.

Cr. Guardian.com

MH17: Hillary Clinton says Russian-backed rebels likely shot down plane

The White House has reacted to the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine by criticising Russia's support for separatist rebels and urging the Kremlin to take "concrete steps" to ease tensions in the country.

A series of remarks by Barack Obama, Joe Biden and John Kerry stopped short of directly blaming pro-Russia rebels for the missile attack on a civilian airliner that killed 298 people.

But Hillary Clinton, the former US secretary of state, was more potent in her statements, saying in a television interview that indications pointed at the Russian-backed side and action was needed to "put [Vladimir] Putin on notice that he has gone too far and we are not going to stand idly by".

Clinton said in an interview with Charlie Rose on the American PBS network: "The questions I'd be asking is, number one, who could have shot it down? Who had the equipment? It's obviously an anti-aircraft missile. Who could have had the expertise to do that? Because commercial airlines are big targets, but by the time they got over that part of Ukraine they should have been high, so it takes some planning [to target such a plane].

"And the Ukrainian government has been quick to blame it on terrorists, which is their name for the Russian insurgents. And there does seem to be some growing awareness that it probably had to be Russian insurgents.

"Now, how we determine that will require some forensics, but then if there is evidence pointing in that direction, the equipment had to have come from Russia. What more the Russians may or may not have done, we don't know.

"Europeans have to be the ones to take the lead on this. It was a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur over European territory. There should be outrage in European capitals."

Joe Biden, the vice-president, said the plane had "apparently had been shot down. Shot down, not an accident. Blown out of the sky."

"We see reports that there may have been American citizens on board and obviously that's our first concern. And we are now working every minute to confirm those reports as I speak," Biden said at the start of a conference address in Detroit.

"This is truly a grave situation. Nearly 300 souls have been lost. The families have our consolation and our prayers. And there are many of them who need answers, and we will get those answers and we will take the next steps accordingly. We are in touch with the Ukrainian government, I was on the phone as I said for the better part of half an hour with President Poroshenko, I'm in contact with our president, as well as our national security team."

The White House press office issued a statement that did not directly blame the Russian side in the conflict but said: "While we do not yet have all the facts, we do know that this incident occurred in the context of a crisis in Ukraine that is fuelled by Russian support for the separatists, including through arms, materiel and training."

"This incident only highlights the urgency with which we continue to urge Russia to immediately take concrete steps to de-escalate the situation in Ukraine and to support a sustainable ceasefire and path toward peace that the Ukrainian government has consistently put forward."

The president, Barack Obama, who spoke to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, by telephone, referred to the "terrible tragedy" and said efforts were under way to determine whether Americans had been killed. "The world is watching," he said during a speech in Delaware. "The United States will offer whatever assistance we can to determine what happened and why, and as a country our thoughts are with all the families of the passengers wherever they call home."

In its press statement the White House said: "We continue to seek information to determine whether there were any American citizens on board.

"It is critical that there be a full, credible and unimpeded international investigation as quickly as possible. We urge all concerned – Russia, the pro-Russian separatists, and Ukraine – to support an immediate ceasefire in order to ensure safe and unfettered access to the crash site for international investigators and in order to facilitate the recovery of remains.

"It is vital that no evidence be tampered with in any way and that all potential evidence and remains at the crash site are undisturbed. The United States remains prepared to contribute immediate assistance to any international investigation, including through resources provided by the NTSB and the FBI."

John Kerry, the secretary of state, said the US sent its condolences to the victims' families and the countries involved, and would help with the international investigation.

Cr. thetlantic.com

The Downing of MH17: A New Precedent for the World's Battlefields

Now that U.S. intelligence officials have confirmed that a surface-to-air missile shot Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 from the sky over Eastern Ukraine on Thursday afternoon, the region’s combatants are trading accusations about whose missile it was.

No one is so far willing to claim credit for the conflict’s first mass-casualty attack on international civilians. There were 295 people aboard the flight; Malaysia Airlines has confirmed that they included Dutch and British citizens, as well as Australians, Malaysians, Indonesians, Canadians, and Filipinos. There have also been reports, which the State Department has yet to confirm, that 23 U.S. citizens were also on the plane.

Related Story

Why Was a Commericial Airliner Flying Over Ukraine?

Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko called the crash “a terrorist act” and insisted that “the Ukraine armed forces did not fire at any targets in the sky.” Meanwhile, the official Russian news organization RIA Novosti quoted the head of Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency as saying that “the responsibility [for flight safety] falls on the Ukrainian side.” (Bracketed insertion RIA Novosti’s.) Alexander Boordai, the leader of the Donetsk People’s Republic, the self-declared breakaway region in Eastern Ukraine, made a more explicit accusation: “It was either Ukrainian aviation or anti-missile defense” that downed the plane. Ukraine’s rebel militias, he said, simply didn’t have the capability to take down a civilian airliner flying at MH17’s altitude.

Given that MH17 was reportedly flying at 33,000 feet when it was shot down, such an attack would indeed represent a major feat for a nonstate actor. There are historical precedents for civilian aircraft being shot down by missiles, but one reason it’s a relatively rare occurrence is that the necessary capabilities tend to be under the control of governments. “There aren’t that many insurgent groups that have that kind of a capability,” says Max Abrahms, a terrorism specialist and professor of political science at Northeastern University.

“But in this case, it actually makes sense” that an insurgent group shot down the plane, he says. States may as a general rule have better weapons than insurgent groups, but “really that power asymmetry goes out the window when the nonstate actor has strong backing from a government. Particularly from a government as weaponized as Russia.”

As my colleague Alexis Madrigal has pointed out, it’s at least possible that separatists in Eastern Ukraine have the technical capability to down an aircraft flying at 33,000 feet. And the rebels have repeatedly demonstrated the capability to shoot down Ukrainian military aircraft.

But an international civilian target is, obviously, different—which is why all parties are scrambling to blame each other. Abrahms is inclined to attribute the attack to the separatists. However, he says, “this was almost certainly a mistake.”

Whether or not it was a mistake, the incident could set a new precedent on the world’s battlefields. As governments have acquired better and better weapons, and either lost control of them as in Libya or given them away as in Russia, Abrahms says, “the quality of weaponry falling into the hands of these militants has gone way up.”