The picture shows a soft drink can, a wire and what appears to be a switch.
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A caption on the photo reads: “EXCLUSIVE – Image of the IED used to bring down the Russian airliner”.
The magazine emphasises the message that the Russian jet was targeted after Vladimir Putin ordered air strikes inside Syria – a common theme throughout much of the group’s recent propaganda.
However, Clive Williams, a professor at the Australian National University’s Centre for Military and Security Law and a member of the global Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators, said the use of a soda can raised questions about whether the device was included in the catering supply.
It is feared the bomb was likely to have been smuggled on board by airport service personnel, such as cabin cleaners or workers delivering baggage and food.
The Islamic State indicated that it exploited a security weakness at the Sharm al-Sheikh airport in Egypt to smuggle the bomb on board that was responsible for killing the 224 passengers and crew.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russian authorities had seen the picture that appeared in the magazine in mass media and were investigating.
And in its foreword, it claimed to reveal how militants “discovered a way to compromise the security at Sharkm el-Sheikh airport” to bring down the Metrojet airliner on 31 October.
“Communications between the pilot and the tower were very normal – no distress signals occurred”, Egyptian transportation minister Hossam Kamal said in a press conference following the incident, according to the NY Times. But it says it changed the target to a Russian plane after Moscow began launching airstrikes in Syria in September.
Russian intelligence chief Alexander Bortnikov on Tuesday gave the first official confirmation from Russia that a bomb detonated aboard the Airbus 321-200, causing it to disintegrate and scatter wreckage over about seven square miles of desert.
In the wake of the attacks, France launched new airstrikes on Raqqa, the Islamic State’s de facto capital in Syria. “We will look for them everywhere, wherever they may hide themselves, we will find them, at any point on the planet, and we will take retribution”.
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“They make it sound like a last-minute decision based on Russia’s entry into the Syrian conflict”, said Mokhtar Awad, an analyst with the Center for American Progress, a U.S. think tank.
