The Islamic State (IS) group said on Wednesday that a homemade bomb had brought down the Russian Airbus A321 in Egypt in October, Reuters reported.

The English-language Dabiq magazine of the jhihadist organization published a photo of a Schweppes soft drink can and “what appeared to be a detonator and switch”, the newswire said.

If genuine, the components in the photo “are likely to cause concern for airline safety officials worldwide.”

The Airbus A-321 operated by Russian airline Kogalymavia, was conducting a scheduled flight between the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh and Saint Petersburg in Russia when it crashed minutes after take-off, killing all 224 people on board.

The Islamic State group said that a bomb had been smuggled onto the Russian airplane at Sharm al-Sheikh airport to punish Russia for its air strikes against IS targets in Syria.

The Russian authorities saw the photo of the homemade bomb on the Internet, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday.   

"Yes, we saw it," Peskov told reporters, according to TASS.

Asked whether the Russian security services will study the photo, Peskov replied that "they will do their best to track down and catch those responsible for this act of terrorism."

Western intelligence services have said that the crash of Flight 9268 in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula on October 31 was the result of bomb explosion on board – a conclusion confirmed by Russia on Tuesday.

"It can be unambiguously said that this was a terrorist act,” Alexander Bortnikov, chief of Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Tuesday, according to TASS.

The same day Russian government announced a USD 50 M reward for information that could lead to those who had brought the airplane down.

According to conclusions of Russian experts, “a homemade explosive device equivalent to 1 kilogramme of TNT went off on board the aircraft during the flight, causing the disintegration of the airplane,” Bortnikov told a meeting of top-level government and military officials called by President Vladimir Putin late on Monday.

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