with egyptian investigators still poring over the wreckage of the metrojet 9268 for clues, today egyptian president abdul el sisi visited sharm el sheikh seeking to calm fears. translator: this was an i isolated incident. reporter: still, u.s. lawmakers briefed on the intelligence are already identifying isis as the likely suspect. everything that i ve seen i am almost ready to conclude that it was isis, that it was either isis or an isis affiliate. and to me i think that is the general consensus. if isil within hours of an explosion like that takes credit, you ve got to seriously look at what involvement they may or may not have had. reporter: u.s. intelligence has not made a definitive conclusion as to what brought down the jet, however isis sinai affiliate remains the only group that has claimed responsibility. and britain s foreign secretary says that claim and other intelligence pointds to either isis itself, an isis affiliate
passengers were russian, what is the impact? if russia comes to the conclusion that isis was, indeed, in some way behind this, all bets may be off in terms of their response, both in syria and iraq potentially against isis but also in the sinai peninsula itself. it s not impossible that russia itself could launch air strikes against the isis affiliate in the sinai affiliate. you think that plays into isis s hands. it may because there will be more anger about russians targeting muslims on the ground, potentially, collateral damage to civilians being killed. as bob was saying, this is a very powerful insurgency. this group is believed to have more than 500 fighters over the last couple years. they killed more than 700 egyptian security forces. they killed an american, an oil worker in 2014. they beheaded a croatian, who was in cairo, who was adopted just recently. this is a very powerful isis
do not bring too much baggage and all your hold luggage, you will be reunited with it. so they are taking no chances, absolutely none. but longer term, was this their problem or aviation s problem? what about this isis sinai affiliate? we talk about possible affiliate, may not be isis, if i m making sense there. how active is this affiliate? how deep in communication would they be maybe directed by someone at isis hq? this is the million-dollar question. this affiliate used to be a prior terror organization in the sinai peninsula. in fact, when members of it pledged allegiance, it caused a rift internally. this was seen to be a a going concern not just in sinai but throughout the entire country of
this, this will turbo-charge their popularity in the global jihadi movement. isis is not thought to have the capability to get devices necessarily past security scanners. but what we re hearing from barbara s reporting is u.s. intelligence agencies believe it was either an insider at the airport or somehow lax security at the airport. that brings into play the group on the ground. that is the isis sinai affiliate. and one of the reasons why it s being perhaps so coy in its statement about the attack, saying you re going to need to figure out how we did this, is because they did have an insider somehow at the airport and they don t want to reveal the fact they may have some kind of mole at sharm el-sheikh airport. it may explain why the statements have so little detail in the last couple of days. i have so much more. this is massive. this would be, as you point out, the biggest terrorist attack since 9/11 as isis is now apparently claiming responsibility and u.s. intelligence suggesti