“Chatter” picked up by British intelligence reportedly featured jihadis with British accents celebrating in Egypt after the explosion. It includes members from Russian Federation, France, Germany and Ireland, where the plane was registered.
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Asked to explain the remaining 10 percent margin of doubt, the investigator declined to elaborate, but Muqaddam cited other possibilities on Saturday including a fuel explosion, metal fatigue in the plane or lithium batteries overheating. Recovered wreckage will be taken to Cairo for analysis.
Sameh Shoukry, speaking at a press conference, said, “European countries did not give us the cooperation we are hoping for”.
Egyptian officials say they are examining all possible scenarios on what could have caused the disaster but have cautioned against jumping to conclusions. “They were clearly celebrating”, it quoted USA officials as saying.
Tens of thousands of people have been left stranded for days by the clampdown, which Egyptians fear could deal a heavy blow to their vital tourism industry, already battered by years of unrest. Almost 17,0000 Britons are also still stranded in Egypt.
Egyptian militants affiliated to the Islamic State who are fighting Egyptian security forces in Sinai Peninsula, have claimed responsibility for bringing down the airplane but have not revealed how they had done this.
Shoukry, apparently incensed by the move, lashed out at the West for not cooperating in Egypt’s war against terror.
GCHQ, the Government’s secret listening centre, picked up “chatter” from extremist groups in Egypt immediately after the Russian plane came down. But these flights banned passengers from checking in luggage, due to an apparent concern about security and luggage-screening procedures at the airport.
A British tourist plane heading in to land at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh came within 1,000 feet (300 metres) of a missile in August, it was reported Saturday.
Russia will send 44 planes to repatriate its nationals, the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency said, and repatriations are expected to take a fortnight. Those sensitivities were on display Sunday as foreign camera crews were prevented from filming inside the Sharm el-Sheikh airport, along the city’s main tourist strip in Naama Bay, or in other public spaces. But Mr Dvorkovich said Russian Federation was sending experts to inspect Egypt’s airports to determine whether their security needed to be beefed up. “This is the main issue now”, Zaitsev said.
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The British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA) said in a statement that “the safety of the aircraft was not put a risk” and described the incident as “separate from the current and ongoing security situation in Sharm el-Sheikh”.
