Russian law enforcement officers walk at the site of a shooting attack on the Crocus town hall in Krasnogorsk, outside Moscow, on March 23, 2024.
Stringer | Afp | Getty Images
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian officials say the death toll has risen to 115 in an attack by assailants who stormed a concert hall and fired into the crowd.
Friday’s attack was claimed by the Islamic State in a statement. The attack was the deadliest in Russia for years and left the concert hall in flames with its roof collapsed.
The head of Russia’s Federal Security Service told President Vladimir Putin on Saturday that four people directly involved in the attack were among the 11 detained, Russia’s state news agency Tass reported.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Previous AP story follows below.
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian authorities have arrested 11 people, state media reported Saturday, after gunmen stormed a concert hall in Moscow in a grisly attack that left at least 93 people dead.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said four of the detainees were directly involved in the attack. Russian agencies appeared to suggest the attack was linked to Ukraine, although the Islamic State group claimed responsibility in a statement. A U.S. intelligence official told The Associated Press that U.S. agencies had confirmed that group was responsible for the attack.
A Russian national tricolor flag flutters in the wind near the burnt Crocus City Hall concert hall, the scene of the gun attack, in Krasnogorsk, outside Moscow, March 23, 2024. Gunmen who opened fire at a Moscow concert hall have killed more than 60 people. people and more than 100 injured as an inferno broke loose, authorities said on March 23, 2024, with the Islamic State group claiming responsibility.
Stringer | Afp | Getty Images
The four suspects were stopped in the Bryansk region of western Russia, “not far from the border with Ukraine”, the Russian Investigative Committee said. They intended to cross the border into Ukraine and “had contact” there, state news agency Tass said, citing Russia’s FSB. On Saturday, the head of the FSB informed President Vladimir Putin of the arrests, according to Tass.
The attack came just days after Putin consolidated his grip on power in a highly orchestrated election landslide. The attack was Russia’s bloodiest in years and came as the country’s fight in Ukraine drags into its third year.
Shortly after the attack, some Russian parliamentarians pointed the finger at Ukraine. Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, denied any involvement.
“Ukraine has never resorted to using terrorist methods,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Everything in this war will be decided only on the battlefield.”
Images shared by Russian state media on Saturday show a fleet of emergency vehicles still gathered outside the ruins of Crocus City Hall, a shopping mall and music venue with a capacity of more than 6,000 people in Krasnogorsk, on the western edge of Moscow.
Videos posted online showed armed men at the scene shooting point-blank at civilians. The roof of the theater, where crowds had gathered Friday for a performance by Russian rock band Picnic, collapsed in the early hours of Saturday morning as firefighters spent hours battling a fire that broke out during the attack.
In a statement published by the Aamaq news agency, the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan said it had attacked a large gathering of “Christians” in Krasnogorsk. The authenticity of the claim could not immediately be verified.
A U.S. intelligence official told the AP that U.S. intelligence agencies had gathered intelligence in recent weeks that IS was planning an attack on Moscow and that U.S. officials had privately shared the intelligence earlier this month with Russian officials.
The official was briefed on the matter but was not authorized to discuss the intelligence information publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
Messages of outrage, shock and support for those affected have since arrived from around the world.
The UN Security Council on Friday condemned the “heinous and cowardly terrorist attack” and stressed the need for those responsible to be held accountable. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also condemned the terrorist attack “in the strongest possible terms”, his spokesman said.
Work to extinguish the fire continues at the Crocus City Hall concert hall near Moscow, Russia, after reports of a shooting on March 23, 2024.
Ali Care | Anadol | Getty Images
Meanwhile, in Moscow itself, hundreds of people were queuing Saturday morning to donate blood and plasma, the Russian Health Ministry said.
Putin, who extended his control over Russia for another six years in this week’s presidential vote after a sweeping crackdown on dissent, had publicly denounced Western warnings of a potential terrorist attack as an attempt to intimidate the Russians. “This all resembles open blackmail and an attempt to scare and destabilize our society,” he said earlier this week.
In October 2015, a bomb planted by the Islamic State brought down a Russian passenger plane over the Sinai, killing all 224 people on board, most of them Russian tourists returning from Egypt. The group, which operates mainly in Syria and Iraq but also in Afghanistan and Africa, has also claimed several attacks in the volatile Russian Caucasus and other regions in recent years. He recruited fighters from Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union.