Vladimir Putin orders increase in airstrikes on Syria, and Egypt denies reports two Sharm airport employees have been detained

A homemade bomb brought down the Metrojet airliner over Egypt’s Sinai desert last month, the Kremlin has said, confirming for the first time that the plane was destroyed by a terrorist act.



The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, vowed to find and punish those responsible and ordered an increase in airstrikes on Syria as “inevitable retribution” for the attack that killed all 224 people on board, mainly returning Russian holidaymakers.

Egypt denied reports that two employees at Sharm el-Sheikh airport had been arrested in connection with the bombing. The final flights clearing British tourists from the Red Sea resort left on Tuesday.

Russia previously distanced itself from the assertions of other countries, including Britain, that a bomb was almost certainly responsible for bringing down the Airbus A321 plane.

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Russia’s FSB security service said investigators had concluded from traces of explosives in the wreckage that an improvised bomb had caused the crash.

Alexander Bortnikov, the head of the FSB, said the plane crash was “unequivocally a terrorist act”. Investigators had studied the personal belongings, baggage and debris from the plane wreckage, he said. “According to our experts, a homemade explosive device equivalent to 1kg of TNT went off onboard, which caused the plane to break up in the air, which explains why the fuselage was scattered over such a large territory.”

He said tests showed the explosives had been produced outside Russia, but gave no further details. The FSB said it was offering a $50m (£33m) reward for information leading to the capture of those responsible.

Putin declared: “The tears in our soul and heart will remain with us forever, but this won’t stop us from finding and punishing those guilty. We will search for them wherever they may be hiding. We will find them anywhere on the planet and punish them.”

As Russian warplanes struck Raqqa, the Isis base in Syria, and other targets, Putin said: “It [the air campaign] must be intensified in such a way that the criminals understand that retribution is inevitable.”

Egypt continued to maintain terrorism was yet to be proven. The prime minister, Sherif Ismail, said Egypt would take the Russian findings into consideration, but the civil aviation minister, Hossam Kamel, said investigators had not found any evidence of criminal intent and the international team of experts had not concluded its work.

A statement from the interior ministry said it was strengthening security protocols at airports around Egypt, but no security shortcomings leading up to the Metrojet disaster had been found.

It denied a Reuters report that Egyptian authorities had detained two airport employees at Sharm el-Sheikh, from where the Russian airliner had taken off 23 minutes before it crashed on 31 October.

Egypt’s tourist industry, a critical source of income, has been hit by the decision of countries including Russia and Britain – its biggest tourist markets – to suspend flights to the Red Sea resort. Confirmation that a bomb was smuggled on to the aircraft will probably have a crushing impact.

Britain and the US have made clear that they believe that a bomb caused the tragedy. Last week, Britain’s foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, said there was a “high probability” that a bomb was planted.

An Isis affiliate claimed responsibility but Russian officials expressed scepticism for several days, even when the UK suspended flights to Sharm.

Mounting evidence of a bomb included the sound of an apparent explosion on the recovered flight recorder, a “flash” from the plane picked up by US satellites and reports of intercepted intelligence chatter involving militant groups in Sinai.

Security experts said the confirmation of a bomb would not necessarily have implications for most European flights, but said the news would reinforce concerns about airports beyond Sharm el-Sheikh.

Norman Shanks, professor of aviation security at Coventry University and a former head of security for BAA and Heathrow, said current European standards for screening luggage and for checking staff should prove sufficient. He said other airports, particularly in tourist destinations, did not enforce the same regime on airport staff and sometimes had inferior technology to carry out x-rays on bags.

Shanks said: “If it does prove to be a bomb that was put in the hold, it was probably taken into the airside part of the airport rather than through passengers’ baggage, which then focuses screening on the staff going into restricted areas.”

He said airports globally had similar regulations but, in practice, audits and security processes were inadequate. “Where you have so-called clean aircraft and passengers, everyone and everything from catering, cargo, baggage should have been subject to screening.”

New technology could be needed to screen baggage, which would lead to increased fares for long-haul flights, he said.

According to some reports, passengers could pay staff at Sharm el-Sheikh to bypass security queues. Philip Baum, editor of Aviation Security International, said: “It’s of great concern that people are bypassing security but it’s by no means restricted to just Sharm.

“If this was an insider threat – a baggage handler – that individual could have been working in any airport. If you look at the number of people involved in criminal activity that could open themselves up to terrorist activity, that’s a problem in Europe or the US as much as in the Sinai peninsula. Most airports employ vast numbers of people on low wages where staff turnover rates are very high.”

The last direct flights by UK airlines bringing home British nationals, who are still travelling without luggage, from Sharm el-Sheikh departed on Tuesday. According to the Department for Transport, fewer than 200 British tourists are thought to remain in the Red Sea resort, and they will return to the UK on other airlines and “at their own risk”.