Now the border had been attacked, ground-to-air missile systems would be searching the sky.

Western experts say it was most likely shot down by a ground-to-air missile fired from territory held by pro-Russian separatists.

Earlier, Ukraine's Interior Minister Anton Gerashchenko was quoted as saying the plane had been shot down by a ground-to-air missile.

Satellite images have been released showing a plume of smoke left by the ground-to-air missile that brought the airliner down.

Moscow has declared it will not yield to pressure to scrap a contract to deliver S-300 ground-to-air missile systems to Syria.

But Russian commanders did not activate their sophisticated, ground-to-air missile defence systems, which could, in theory, have intercepted the American cruise missiles.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards shot down the Ukraine International Airlines flight with a ground-to-air missile on Jan. 8 shortly after the plane took off from Tehran.

These systems are designed to protect aircraft against heat-seeking ground-to-air missiles.

Longspear ground-to-air missiles were worth the extra sweat of lugging them around a battlefield.

The Houthi rebels said they used ground-to-air missiles to down the warplane on Friday night.

Ground-to-air missiles rely on kinetic energy as much as their warhead to down an aircraft.

Syrian president Bashar al-Assad yesterday revealed that Russia has delivered advanced S-300 ground-to-air missiles to Syria.

France has boosted its deployment of ground-to-air missiles protecting the La Hague nuclear waste reprocessing site.

He called on the republican movement to decommission "weapons of offence" such as Semtex and ground-to-air missiles.

Reports in France spoke of supplying ground-to-air missiles to the opposition to try to counter the regime's air superiority in the war.

They immediately spun toward Wendosa-thenseemed to hang there frozen as a flurry of ground-to-airmissiles came streaking out of the jungle.