Getty The plane could have been a British aircraft

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The terror group has told how it changed its target to a Russian plane due to President Vladimir Putin's forces directing air strikes at its fighters in Syria. MetroJet flight 9268 crashed on October 31 over Sinai province in Egypt just 23 minutes after it set off from tourist resort Sharm el-Sheikh as it headed to St Petersburg.

All 224 passengers and crew - mainly Russians - were killed, with officials saying wreckage and bodies were strewn across a 12 square mile area. ISIS claimed responsibility shortly after, with Britain and the US saying they believed the plane was blown up by a bomb. Russia denied it was a bomb until yesterday when President Putin announced it must have been a bomb from within the aircraft and said he is giving a £33million reward to anybody with information about the assailants.

Getty The plane was in smithereens by the time it got to the ground

Today, the English-language ISIS magazine, Dabiq, wrote: "The blessed attacks against the Russians and the French were successfully executed despite the international intelligence war against the Islamic State. "On 30 September 2015 after years of supporting the Nusayri taghut in the war against the Muslims of Sham (Syria), Russia decided to participate directly with its own air force in the war. "It was a rash decision of arrogance from Russia, as if it held that its wars against the Muslims of al-Qawqaz were not enough offence.

ISIS ISIS released this picture claiming to have passports of some of those killed

"And so after having discovered a way to compromise the security at the Sharm el-Sheikh International Airport and resolving to bring down a plane belonging to a nation in the American-led Western coalition against the Islamic State, the target was changed to a Russian plane. "A bomb was smuggled onto the airplane, leading to the deaths of 219 Russians and five other crusaders only a month after Russia's thoughtless decision."

Dabiq This is the bomb ISIS claims to have used in the Russian plane