Daesh terrorists claim improvised bomb used in downing Russia plane

The Takfiri Daesh terrorist group has released a photo that shows an improvised bomb it claims to have used to bring down a Russian passenger plane flying over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula in October.

In a new edition of its Dabiq magazine published on Wednesday, Daesh released a photo of a soft drink can, a detonator and a switch, which it said was carried past security at the Sharm el-Sheikh International Airport and onto the Russian Metrojet airliner on October 31.

Daesh claimed responsibility for downing the airliner after it crashed and killed all the 224 people onboard, although Russian and Egyptian officials rejected the statement as propaganda. The Takfiri group said it would reveal the mechanism of the downing in due time.

Russian officials on Tuesday concluded their investigation into the incident, saying a bomb was surely onboard the plane, causing the crash.

“According to an analysis by our specialists, a homemade bomb containing up to one kilogram of TNT detonated during the flight, causing the plane to break up in mid air, which explains why parts of the fuselage were spread over such a large distance,” said the head of Russia’s FSB security service, Alexander Bortnikov.

The image of the can of Schweppes Gold pineapple juice was accompanied with an article which claimed to reveal how militants of Daesh “discovered a way to compromise the security at Sharm el-Sheikh airport.”

“A bomb was smuggled onto the airplane,” said the article, without elaborating how, adding that the same method could be used against planes of the countries currently involved in airstrikes against Daesh in Syria and Iraq.

Russia began its airstrikes against positions of Daesh and other militant groups in Syria on September 30, after it received an official request from the Syrian government. A coalition of Western and regional militaries, under the leadership of the United States, has also been pounding purported Daesh positions in Iraq and Syria, although Damascus rejects the campaign as ineffective and violating its territorial sovereignty.

In its claims, which cannot be independently verified because of the ambiguities surrounding Daesh, the terror group said it had initially aimed to bring down “a plane belonging to a nation in the American-led Western coalition,” but it said the decision was revised after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered airstrikes inside Syria. “... the target was changed to a Russian plane,” it said.

Putin said on Tuesday that Moscow would increase its airstrikes against Daesh in Syria in response to the plane crash.

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