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Relatives of passengers aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 watch a news program about the missing plane as they wait for information at a hotel ballroom in Beijing on Monday, March 17. The Boeing 777 disappeared during a March 8 flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing.
Malaysian Transportation Minister Hishamuddin Hussein, center, shows maps of the search area March 17 at a hotel in Sepang, Malaysia, next to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
U.S. Navy crew members assist in search-and-rescue operations Sunday, March 16, in the Indian Ocean.
Indonesian personnel watch over high seas during a search operation in the Andaman Sea on Saturday, March 15.
A foam plane, which has personalized messages for the missing flight's passengers, is seen at a viewing gallery March 15 at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
A member of the Malaysian navy makes a call as his ship approaches a Chinese Coast Guard ship in the South China Sea on March 15.
A Indonesian ship heads to the Andaman Sea during a search operation near the tip of Sumatra, Indonesia, on March 15.
Elementary school students pray for the missing passengers during class in Medan, Indonesia, on March 15.
Col. Vu Duc Long of the Vietnam air force fields reporters' questions at an air base in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, after a search operation on Friday, March 14.
Members of the Chinese navy continue search operations on Thursday, March 13. The search area for Flight 370 has grown wider. After starting in the sea between Malaysia and Vietnam, the plane's last confirmed location, efforts are expanding west into the Indian Ocean.
A Vietnamese military official looks out an aircraft window during search operations March 13.
Malaysian air force members look for debris on March 13 near Kuala Lumpur.
A relative of a missing passenger watches TV at a Beijing hotel as she waits for the latest news March 13.
A member of the Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency scans the horizon in the Strait of Malacca on Wednesday, March 12.
Relatives of missing passengers wait for the latest news at a hotel in Beijing on March 12.
Journalists raise their hands to ask questions during a news conference in Sepang on March 12.
Indonesian air force officers in Medan, Indonesia, examine a map of the Strait of Malacca on March 12.
A member of the Vietnamese air force checks a map while searching for the missing plane on Tuesday, March 11.
Iranians Pouri Nourmohammadi, second left, and Delavar Seyed Mohammad Reza, far right, were identified by Interpol as the two men who used stolen passports to board the flight. But there's no evidence to suggest either was connected to any terrorist organizations, according to Malaysian investigators. Malaysian police believe Nourmohammadi was trying to emigrate to Germany using the stolen Austrian passport.
An Indonesian navy crew member scans an area of the South China Sea bordering Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand on Monday, March 10.
Vietnam air force Col. Le Huu Hanh is reflected on the navigation control panel of a plane that is part of the search operation over the South China Sea on March 10.
Relatives of the missing flight's passengers wait in a Beijing hotel room on March 10.
A U.S. Navy Seahawk helicopter lands aboard the USS Pinckney to change crews before returning to search for the missing plane Sunday, March 9, in the Gulf of Thailand.
Members of the Fo Guang Shan rescue team offer a special prayer March 9 at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
A handout picture provided by the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency shows personnel checking a radar screen during search-and-rescue operations March 9.
Italian tourist Luigi Maraldi, who reported his passport stolen in August, shows his current passport during a news conference at a police station in Phuket island, Thailand, on March 9. Two passengers on the missing Malaysia Airlines flight were reportedly traveling on stolen passports belonging to Maraldi and an Austrian citizen whose papers were stolen two years ago.
Hugh Dunleavy, commercial director of Malaysia Airlines, speaks to journalists March 9 at a Beijing hotel where relatives and friends of the missing flight's passengers are staying.
Vietnamese air force crew stand in front of a plane at Tan Son Nhat airport in Ho Chi Minh City on March 9 before heading out to the area between Vietnam and Malaysia where the airliner vanished.
Buddhist monks at Kuala Lumpur International Airport offer a special prayer for the missing passengers on March 9.
The Chinese navy warship Jinggangshan prepares to leave Zhanjiang Port early on March 9 to assist in search-and-rescue operations for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight. The Jinggangshan, an amphibious landing ship, is loaded with lifesaving equipment, underwater detection devices and supplies of oil, water and food.
Members of a Chinese emergency response team board a rescue vessel at the port of Sanya in China's Hainan province on March 9. The vessel is carrying 12 divers and will rendezvous with another rescue vessel on its way to the area where contact was lost with Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.
The rescue vessel sets out from Sanya in the South China Sea.
A family member of missing passengers is mobbed by journalists at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Saturday, March 8.
A Vietnamese air force plane found traces of oil that authorities had suspected to be from the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, the Vietnamese government online newspaper reported March 8. However, a sample from the slick showed it was bunker oil, typically used to power large cargo ships, Malaysia's state news agency, Bernama, reported on March 10.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, center, arrives to meet family members of missing passengers at the reception center at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on March 8.
Malaysia Airlines official Joshua Law Kok Hwa, center, speaks to reporters in Beijing on March 8.
A relative of two missing passengers reacts at their home in Kuala Lumpur on March 8.
Wang Yue, director of marketing of Malaysia Airlines in China, reads a company statement during a news conference at the Metro Park Lido Hotel in Beijing on March 8.
Chinese police at the Beijing airport stand beside the arrival board showing delayed Flight 370 in red on March 8.
A woman asks a staff member at the Beijing airport for more information on the missing flight.
A Malaysian man who says he has relatives on board the missing plane talks to journalists at the Beijing airport on March 8.
Passengers walk past a Malaysia Airlines sign on March 8 at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
Malaysia Airlines Group CEO Ahmad Juahari Yahya, front, speaks during a news conference on March 8 at a hotel in Sepang. "We deeply regret that we have lost all contacts" with the jet, he said.
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- Officials say Flight 370 was diverted, but how likely is it that terrorists were responsible?
- Peter Bergen says known terrorist groups seem unlikely to be involved
- Jemaah Islamiyah has a presence in Malaysia, but it has been on the decline, he says
- Bergen: If a terrorist group was responsible, it hasn't acted to achieve any political aims
Editor's note: Peter Bergen is CNN's national security analyst, a director at the New America Foundation and the author of "Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for bin Laden -- From 9/11 to Abbottabad."
(CNN) -- Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak told reporters over the weekend that "deliberate" action by somebody on board accounted for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 veering off course.
Could the mystery of Malaysia Airlines 370 then be explained as an act of terrorism?
To answer that you have to assess both the capabilities and the intentions of the known terrorist groups that might want to hijack such a plane. And you have to ask the question: Cui bono? For whose benefit?
The al Qaeda-affiliated group, Jemaah Islamiyah, has a presence in Malaysia as well as in the Philippines and Indonesia. But the group has been under sustained law enforcement pressure for more than a decade after it bombed nightclubs on the Indonesian island of Bali in 2002, killing more than 200 people, mostly Western tourists. The group has also carried out bombings at the Australian Embassy in Indonesia and the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton Hotels in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.
However, the capabilities of the once-potent Jemaah Islamiyah have eroded over time. And would Jemaah Islamiyah, an Islamist militant group, target for attack the air carrier of a majority Muslim country on which quite a number of Muslims were likely traveling? It is more plausible that the group would select a Western airline because Western embassies and Western brand-name hotels have been the focus of their previous attacks and plots.
A terrorist group that might have a motive is the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a separatist group in China founded by Uighurs that has had some historical ties to al Qaeda and the Taliban. The Uighurs are an ethnic group in western China who are Muslim. The group has conducted a number of terrorist attacks in China.
Flight 370: The search in the ocean
Amanpour: 'Greatest aviation drama'
Missing jet spawns conspiracy theories
Uighur terrorists might have a motive to hijack the Malaysia Airlines flight as it was bound for Beijing and most of the passengers were Chinese. But Uighur militants have operated almost exclusively inside China. And when they have tried to mount hijackings in the past they have been complete flops. On March 9, 2008, a 19-year old Uighur woman attempted to set off some kind of explosive device on a flight from the Xinjiang Uighur region en route to Beijing. The flight crew detained the woman before she could detonate the device.
Four year later, on June 29, 2012, half a dozen Uighur men attempted to take control of an aircraft flying in the Xinjiang Uighur region using pieces of a metal crutch that had been sharpened to make crude weapons. This plot was also foiled.
Beyond Uighur militants or operatives of Jemaah Islamiyah, might there be other terrorist groups with the motivation and capability of pulling off the hijacking of the Malaysia Airlines flight?
It doesn't seem so. If this were a hijacking for political purposes, the hijacking would have been followed by an act designed to send a political message, such as the planes hijacked on 9/11 that were then flown into the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
Or there would be set of demands, as was the case with the Indian Airlines flight that was hijacked to Kandahar, Afghanistan, by militant Kashmiri separatists in December 1999. They demanded the release of leading militants in Indian jails, a demand to which the Indian government acceded.
Or there would be a credible claim of responsibility. The one claim of responsibility so far is from an outfit calling itself the Chinese Martyrs' Brigade. This claim is not deemed to be credible. Malaysian Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein told reporters last week: "There is no sound or credible grounds to justify their claims.'"
If the diversion of Malaysia Airlines 370 was not an act of terrorism, the other likely scenarios are a pilot suicide attempt, the piracy of the plane for some kind of economic reason or the commandeering of the aircraft by someone with an idiosyncratic motive that will only become clear over time.
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