U.S. officials express growing confidence bomb downed Russian plane

The United States appears to be increasingly confident that a terrorist bomb brought down the Russian passenger jet that broke apart over Egypt, according to unnamed sources quoted by CNN.

The remarks are stronger than those made by US President Barack Obama when he said there was “a possibility” a bomb was on Metrojet Flight 9268, which disintegrated over the Sinai Peninsula October 31, killing all 224 people aboard.

The plane departed the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh and was headed to St Petersburg.

The growing confidence in the bomb hypothesis comes as Russian authorities continue to fly home the remains of victims for identification.

A fourth Russian government plane carrying victims’ remains flew Sunday from Cairo to St Petersburg, where a memorial service was held at the city’s St. Isaac’s Cathedral. The cathedral’s bell was rung 224 times, in memory of each victim.

So far, the remains of 58 victims have been identified through DNA testing, Russian state broadcaster Russia 24 reported.

Meanwhile on Sunday, Russian experts arrived in Sharm el-Sheikh to conduct security checks at the airport, and had already focused their work in the pre-departure area, airport deputy director Hani Ramzy told Russian state-run news agency RIA Novosti.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said Sunday that a second and third group of Russian security experts will depart Moscow soon and they will check all major airports in Egypt.

At least some of the intelligence intercepts being used to assess what happened to the jetliner came from Israeli intelligence, according to a U.S. official briefed on the intelligence, and a diplomatic source.

The communications were captured by Israeli intelligence focused on the Sinai, and passed along to the United States and Britain.

Egyptian officials, who are in charge of the main crash investigation, have taken a more cautious line on the bomb theory, with Ayman al-Muqaddam, the head of the investigation, telling reporters Saturday that “all the scenarios” remained on the table. “We don’t know what happened exactly,” he said.

Muqaddam said Egypt had not been provided any information or evidence tied to reports suggesting that a bomb took down the flight, and urged the sources of the reports to pass along related evidence to Egyptian investigators.

But if some of the intelligence is Israeli in origin, it could be an impediment to intelligence sharing over the crash.

The belief that a bomb was most likely to blame centers to a large extent on British and U.S. intercepts of communications after the crash from the Islamic militant group ISIS’s affiliate in Sinai to ISIS operatives in Syria, according to officials.

The Sinai affiliate has publicly claimed responsibility for downing the Russian jet, which was flying from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg, but so far hasn’t explained how it was done. That’s prompted questions about the claim among some observers, considering ISIS’ tendency to often publicize its acts for propaganda value.

Blakc box investigators said the cockpit voice recorder indicates an explosion, and the flight data recorder shows the blast was not accidental, according to France 2.

Muqaddam, however, was more circumspect in his comments Saturday on the contents of the flight recorders.

He confirmed a noise was heard in the final second of the cockpit recording as the aircraft was on autopilot and ascending. But he offered no description of the sound, saying a specialized analysis would be carried out to identify it.

The crash might have been caused by a lithium battery or a mechanical issue, Muqaddam said, noting that the investigation was being hampered by bad weather.