Islamic State’s Egyptian affiliate on Wednesday dismissed in an audio message doubts that it had downed a Russian passenger jet over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, killing all aboard, and said it would tell the world how it did so in its own time.
The Russian-operated Airbus A321M crashed on Saturday shortly after taking off from the Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Sheikh on its way to St Petersburg, killing all 224 people on board.
Sinai Province, an Egyptian group loyal to Islamic State, said in a statement the same day that it had brought down the airliner "in response to Russian air strikes that killed hundreds of Muslims on Syrian land".
The claim was dismissed by Russian and Egyptian officials.
Security experts and investigators have said the jet is unlikely to have been struck from the outside, and Sinai-based militants are not believed to possess the technology to shoot down a jet from a cruising altitude above 30,000 feet.
Russian officials have, however, said the plane probably broke up in the air, leaving open the prospect of some kind of explosion on board.
Unusual sounds
Asked to comment on those remarks and local press reports that the black box voice recorders had picked up unusual sounds before the flight crashed, civil aviation minister Hossam Kemal said the facts had yet to be established.
“This is all speculation. There is nothing definitive until the investigation commission completes its probe,” he said.
The cockpit voice recorder from the jet is “partially damaged” and will require extensive work to allow investigators to listen to the final minutes of the flight, Egypt’s civil aviation ministry said on Wednesday.
In an audio message posted on a Twitter account used by the group, Islamic State’s Egyptian affiliate insisted it was behind the crash. The claim could not yet be authenticated.
“We say to the deniers and the doubters: Die from your frustration. We, with God’s grace, are the ones who brought it down, and we are not obliged to disclose the mechanism of its demise,” the speaker said.
“So go to the wreckage, search, bring your black boxes and analyse, give us the summary of your research and the product of your expertise and prove that we did not bring it down or how it came down,” he said.
“We will disclose the mechanism of its demise at the time that we want and in the way that we want.”
Russia, an ally of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, launched air raids against opposition groups in Syria, including Islamic State, on September 30th.
Hardline group
The hardline group has called for war against both Russia and the United States in response to their air strikes in Syria.
Islamic State backers in Iraq issued a video on Tuesday congratulating their Egyptian peers and warning Russian president Vladimir Putin that more was to come. They handed out sweets to celebrate the crash.
Sinai-based militants have killed hundreds of Egyptian soldiers and police in recent years and have also attacked Western targets. Egypt has carried out air strikes on them.
Islamic State websites have in the past claimed responsibility for actions that have not been conclusively attributed to them.
Meanwhile, US military officials said late on Tuesday that satellite surveillance had detected a large flash of light just as the jet broke apart and fell from the sky over the Sinai Peninsula.
The US military is not part of the multinational investigation into the crash, but officials said the satellite images were the first indication that the plane had exploded, because of either a bomb or the ignition of a fuel tank.
It will probably take several more days for the authorities to better understand what in fact occurred.
Waves of hand-wringing
The disaster has set off waves of hand-wringing in Egypt, Russia and elsewhere about whether mechanical failure, human error or terrorism was the cause.
In the resort area of Sharm al-Sheikh where the plane took off minutes before the crash, thousands of sun-seekers from Russia and other European countries arriving daily say they are undeterred. Most have already written off the possibility that the crash was terrorism.
They shrug off the risks, exhale cigarette smoke and talk about destiny. "Russia is dangerous and not safe either," said Svetlana Golobitz, a paediatrician from St Petersburg who was smoking a cigarette just outside the terminal gate.
“You can have an accident driving in a car or walking in the night; this is your fate,” she said. “I like this place, so I want to spend my winter here.”
‘Premature speculation’
The Russian and Egyptian authorities have both sought to rule out an act of terrorism even as they have warned others against premature speculation about the results of their continuing investigation.
President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt on Tuesday dismissed claims of responsibility from the local Islamic State chapter as “propaganda” aiming to harm “the stability and security of Egypt and the image of Egypt”.
In the same interview, with the BBC, al-Sisi said it would “take time to clarify” the causes of the crash because the investigation was just beginning.
Reuters/New York Times