Was EgyptAir plane crash terrorism? ISIS video warned of attack

THE Islamic State issued this chilling threat just days before EgyptAir flight MS804 went missing over the Mediterranean Sea.

THIS is the chilling video which directly threatened France just days before EgyptAir MS804 went missing over the Mediterranean Sea.

The video, released by Islamic State’s propaganda wing, shows two young boys who say, “We will kill you, as you killed our brothers”.

“I was asked to do a favour: to become a martyr. To go to France to expose them and avenge the blood of Muslims,” one of the boys says.

Released earlier this week, the 14-minute video directly threatens France which had 15 nationals aboard the missing flight.

The IS propaganda video featured an Air France plane.

IS is yet to claim responsibility for the disaster and there is no confirmation as yet that the plane was used in a terrorist attack.

The sickening video titled The Footsteps of My Father features two young French boys executing a pair of prisoners.

It also shows them being taught in the schoolroom before moving to them in action at target practice in a field shooting at portraits of French President Francois Hollande, along with other world leaders including Barack Obama, and Vladimir Putin.

It is not yet clear how the boys came to be with IS or who they are.

The chilling video features the two boys in the classroom and arms with guns.

The video, which would no doubt be used in an attempt to recruit French nationals to fight for IS, also features several iconic Paris landmarks including the Eiffel Tower.

The River Seine, and an Air France plane also feature prominently in the video.

The missing EgyptAir flight left Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport yesterday but never arrived at Cairo, and is understood to have crashed over the Mediterranean with 66 people on board.

The propaganda video would be used to lure IS recruits from France.

IS IT TERROR?

In a televised speech overnight, French President Francois Hollande said nothing should be ruled out on the reasons behind what caused EgyptAir flight MS804 to go missing.

The president, who convened an emergency meeting about the flight, said “the information that we have managed to gather confirm alas that this plane has crashed, and it has disappeared.”

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said they were being “extremely prudent” about possible causes and trying to gather all the information.

“We are not ruling out any hypothesis,” he said.

The disaster also raises questions about security at De Gaulle Airport, at a time when western Europe has been on high alert over the deadly Islamic extremist attacks in Paris and at the Brussels airport and subway over the past six months, AP reported.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said that airport security had been tightened considerably before the disaster, in part because of the coming Euro 2016 football tournament, which France is hosting.

The Egyptian military said it did not receive a distress call from the doomed plane, and Egypt’s state-run daily Al-Ahram quoted an unidentified airport official as saying the pilot did not send one.

That could indicate that whatever sent the aircraft plummeting into the sea was sudden.

Egyptian security officials also confirmed they were running background checks on the passengers to see if any had links to extremists.

‘COULD BE A BOMB’

Yesterday one of Australia’s most prominent counter terrorism researchers speculated the disappearance of the plane could be the result of a bomb.

Deakin University professor Greg Barton said while it is possible MS804 vanished on the way from Paris to Cairo because of a conventional systems failure, “if you have an aircraft experience an explosive decompression at cruise altitude, that points to it being a bomb”.

The propaganda video features two young French boys.

He told news.com.au that other aircraft flying in bad weather have entered into a high-speed stall and a terminal spin due to human error (such as Air France 447 flying into bad weather from Rio de Janeiro to Paris in June 2009) but that does not appear to be the case here.

“If the radar image is suddenly not there and there’s a sudden deceleration, as with the Sharm el-Sheik flight, it does strongly suggest a bomb.”

The Sharm el-Sheik crash came in November, when Russian Metrojet Airbus A321 crashed in the Egyptian resort town just 23 minutes after departing for St Petersburg, killing all 224 passengers. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack.

Islamic State released a video which threatened to kill French citizens.

Russia admitted the plane was brought down by a homemade bomb on board.

Islamic State affiliate in Egypt said it was behind the crash of the flight run by the Kogalymavia airline, which operates under the name Metrojet, but did not give details and Cairo and Moscow both cast doubt on the claim.

Professor Barton said there would be “lots of capacity for exploiting the lax security” at Cairo airport and other North African airports where the aircraft had been earlier in the day.

Map showing the flight path of missing EgyptAir flight 804. Picture: news.com.au

While it would have been harder to plant a bomb at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, he said someone could have managed to conceal the device on a previous flight and set it to detonate 30 hours later.

He noted that France and Belgium also had a large IS element, with many individuals returned from the Middle East.

The Middle East expert said the current security situation in Egypt is “dire”, with the authorities struggling to maintain control over its citizens.

.@EGYPTAIR stating #MS804 has "disappeared from radar". FR24 flight track: https://t.co/6tH4GQzOWU pic.twitter.com/NteMuuFj1O

— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) May 19, 2016

“The government under Mubarak was repressive, under Sisi [president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi], it’s worse. The regimen has totalitarian aspirations but not the capacity to achieve these aspirations.

“They’ll pick someone off the street and beat the life out of them. It polarises society. IS has a strong presence.

“Even in Cairo and Alexandria there are elements more inclined than ever to fight back.

They’re next to Libya, a failed state that’s in chaos, and they don’t have complete control over their borders.”

The Federal Government’s advice online is for Australians to “reconsider your need to travel to Egypt due to the threat of terrorist attack and kidnapping.”

It says terror attacks could occur at any time, including in tourist areas.