WASHINGTON — Senior House members said Sunday that there was a mounting consensus among U.S. intelligence officials that a bomb brought down the Russian charter jet that crashed last month in the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, killing all 224 people on board.
華盛頓——周日，一些資深眾議員表示，美國情報官員日益形成共識：造成俄羅斯包機上個月在埃及西奈半島墜毀，機上224人全部遇難的原因，是一枚炸彈的爆炸。
“I think there's a growing body of intelligence and evidence that this was a bomb — still not conclusive — but a growing body of evidence,” Rep. Adam B. Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said on the ABC program “This Week.”
「我認為，越來越多的情報和證據指向了炸彈爆炸。儘管還沒有定論，但是證據越來越多，」加利福尼亞州眾議員亞當·B·希夫(Adam B. Schiff)在ABC新聞節目《本周》(This Week)上說。希夫是眾議院情報委員會民主黨資深成員。
Rep. Peter T. King, R-N.Y., the chairman of the House Homeland Security subcommittee on terrorism and intelligence, went further, saying on the same program that intelligence officials he had spoken to believed that the Islamic State or an affiliate was behind the crash.
紐約州共和黨眾議員、眾議院國土安全委員會(Homeland Security Committee)主席皮特·T·金(Peter T. King)更進一步，在同一個節目上說他與一些情報官員交談過，他們認為伊斯蘭國(Islamic State)或其分支組織是這起墜機事件的幕後元兇。
“Right now all the evidence points in that direction,” King said.
「目前所有證據都指向這個方向，」金說。
It is not clear how much U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies have learned about the crash, which occurred Oct. 31. U.S. investigators have not been invited to visit the crash site, and while the Russian government has asked the FBI for help, it is not known how much information Moscow has shared with the bureau.
目前尚不清楚美國情報機構和執法機構對10月31日墜機事件的了解有多深。美國調查人員沒有被邀請前往出事地點，雖然俄羅斯政府已向美國聯邦調查局(FBI)尋求幫助，但莫斯科向該局透露了多少信息卻並不清楚。
In the days before the crash, electronic communications in which militants discussed an aviation attack were intercepted, but U.S. officials said that type of “chatter” is often picked up.
在墜機發生前的幾天里，官方截獲了武裝分子討論攻擊民航的電子通訊，但美國官員說，經常監聽到這種類型的「聊天」。
Schiff, who was briefed by intelligence officials on Saturday, raised the possibility that someone working at the airport may have helped the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, place a bomb on the plane.
希夫上周六聽取了情報官員的彙報，他認為機場可能有伊斯蘭國的內應，將炸彈放置到了飛機上。伊斯蘭國又稱ISIS或ISIL。
“ISIS may have concluded that the best way to defeat airport defenses is not to go through them but to go around them with the help of somebody on the inside,” Schiff said.
「ISIS可能得出結論，認為突破機場防禦的最好辦法不是經過它，而是在內應的幫助下繞過去，」希夫說。
If the Islamic State was behind the crash, it was able to mount the kind of attack that al-Qaida has found difficult to carry out in recent years. At least three times since 2009, al-Qaida's affiliate in Yemen has come close but failed to bring down an airliner using bombs that were designed to be undetectable.
如果ISIS是本次墜機的元兇，那它的確實施了基地組織近年來難以辦到的那種攻擊。自2009年以來，基地組織在也門的分支至少三次差點用炸彈襲擊客機，但都失敗了。那些炸彈的設計可以躲避檢測。