WASHINGTON — The British government has reason to believe the plane crash that took the lives of 224 Russian passengers and crew in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, was caused by a bomb.
“While the investigation is still ongoing, we cannot say categorically why the Russian jet crashed. But as more information has come to light we have become concerned that the plane may well have been brought down by an explosive device,” British Prime Minister David Cameron said a statement Wednesday.
As a result, and for precautionary reasons, Cameron said, the British government decided that “flights due to leave Sharm for the UK [Wednesday] evening will be delayed. That will allow time for a team of UK aviation experts, currently travelling to Sharm, to make an assessment of the security arrangements in place at the airport and to identify whether any further action is required.”
Also, the Irish Aviation Authority decided to suspend flights to Sharm el-Sheikh Airport and into the airspace of the Sinai Peninsula “until further notice.”
According to sources familiar with the investigation, U.S. intelligence authorities have gathered information suggesting it was a bomb that may have been placed by the Islamic State and the Levant (ISIL) on the plane.
But U.S. officials told WTOP they couldn’t go beyond the statement Director of National Intelligence James Clapper made Monday.
“We don’t have any direct evidence of any terrorist involvement yet. It’s unlikely, but I wouldn’t rule it out,” Clapper said in the statement.
ISIL, in a statement, claimed it caused the crash hours after it took place and released an audio message on Wednesday insisting it was responsible.
On the audio file, an unidentified narrator reads a statement from Islamic State proxy, Wilayah Sinai. The audio was accompanied by the sound of a jihadist chant. The text version of the statement is titled, “Breaking: Downing a Russian Airplane and Killing Over 220 Russian Crusaders Onboard.”
Late on Wednesday, reports emerged that U.S. intelligence picked up chatter from the organization that added credibility to ISIL’s claims. Those claims were initially dismissed as an attempt to project themselves, using the power of social media, as a more powerful organization than they are.
But former Deputy White House Spokesman Shawn Turner says he believes that ISIL’s money opens a lot of doors.
“If the investigation determines that this was a terror attack carried out by ISIL, we may find that one reason the group was able to be successful, is due to their ability to finance the attack from a distance,” says Turner.
“We can’t forget that as ISIL captured territory in Iraq and Northern Syria, the group amassed significant amounts of financial resources along the way.”
The Islamic State, as ISIL is also known, is believed to be worth more than $2 billion.
As concern grew about the crash and the cause, the U.S. State Department on Monday ordered personnel to stay away from the region.
“As a precautionary measure, the United States Embassy (Cairo) has instructed its employees not to travel anywhere in the Sinai Peninsula pending the outcome of the investigation into the tragic crash of a Russian passenger jet in Egypt on October 31,” says an emergency message posted on the embassy website.
“This is a game changer for commercial aviation at this time. If this was a terrorist incident, this might signal a new era in terrorist capability,” says Fred Burton, vice president of Intelligence at Stratfor.
Burton said because of post-9/11 advancements in security on airplanes, “we’ve had a pretty good run preventing terrorists from targeting commercial aircraft.”
“This is a wakeup call for commercial aviation all around the globe,” Burton says.
