At least one of the two Russian plane crashes that killed 90 people this week was the result of a terrorist attack, a top Russian security service spokesperson said on Friday.
”According to our initial investigation, at least one of the air crashes, the one in the Rostov region, came as a result of a terror attack,” spokesperson Sergei Ignatchenko told Itar-Tass news agency.
His comments came on Friday after investigators said they had found traces of explosive material in the wreckage of one of the two planes that crashed in southern Russia.
The two planes, flying out of Moscow, crashed on Tuesday at 11pm. A Tupelov-134 bound for Volgograd fell from the sky near Tula, about 200km from the capital, just as a Tupelov 154 heading to the southern beach resort of Sochi crashed near Rostov on Don. There were no survivors. Witnesses reported seeing explosions before the planes crashed.
Islamic group claims responsibility
Meanwhile, an Islamic group calling itself the Islambouli Brigades claimed responsibility on Friday for the crashes of both Russian planes, hailing it as a first strike to stop Moscow’s fight against separatists in Chechnya.
”The Islambouli Brigades declare that our mujahedeen [fighters] have succeeded in hijacking two Russian planes,” said the group in a statement posted on a website.
It said: ”The mujahedeens have succeeded despite the problems that they encountered at the beginning. They were five mujahedeens in each plane.”
”Our mujahedeens succeeded in directing the first strike that will be followed by a series of operations aimed to back and assist our brothers in Chechnya and other regions suffering from Russia,” it added.
”Russia’s slaughtering of Muslims continues and will not stop without the start of a war that would shed blood.”
The group said it will ”soon publish the wills of the mujahedeens who sacrificed their lives”.
The authenticity of the statement could not immediately be confirmed. A group by the same name has claimed attacks in Pakistan earlier this month.
The use of the name Islambouli is a likely reference to Lieutenant Khaled al-Islambouli, who took part in the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in Cairo in 1981.
Kremlin faces public anger
The Kremlin was facing growing public anger at its refusal to recognise the double airline as an act of terrorism.
Officials suggested on Thursday that it would take another two days for the investigation to draw any definitive conclusions. But the country’s press was united in insisting that the incident was another terror attack.
That theory gained weight on Thursday, when it was confirmed that the crew of one of the airliners had triggered the SOS button before their plane crashed. Although Vladimir Yakovlev, the presidential envoy to the southern region encompassing Chechnya, told the Itar-Tass news agency that the planes’ data recorders hadn’t provided any firm clues, he said terrorism remained the most likely cause. — Sapa, AFP, The Guardian