Cairo: The Islamic State group has said it smuggled a bomb on board a Russian airliner that went down last month, after discovering a "way to compromise the security" at an Egyptian airport.
The group published what it said were pictures of the explosive, apparently contained in a soda can, and of passports that had belonged to the dead passengers and were retrieved from the crash site in the Sinai Peninsula.
The latest edition of its official online magazine Dabiq said IS had initially planned to down a plane belonging to a country from the US-led coalition targeting militants in Iraq and Syria.
The militants decided to instead target the Russian plane departing the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh after Moscow began an air campaign in Syria in late September, the magazine said.
Russia on Wednesday said its planes were targeting oil tanker trucks belonging to the Islamic State group in Syria, as Moscow looks to ratchet up pressure on the jihadists.
"Today a decision was taken according to which Russian warplanes are now flying on a so-called 'free hunt' against tanker trucks carrying oil products belonging to terrorists in areas controlled by IS," senior Russian military official Andrei Kartapolov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.
AFP
