©Reuters. A digital billboard with a date and a slogan, reading “Let’s cry”, displayed in memory of the shooting victims, is seen in front of the burning Crocus City Hall concert hall, on the outskirts of Moscow, Russia, March 23, 2024. REUTERS /Maxim Shemetov
By Guy Faulconbridge and Alexander Marrow
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia has arrested 11 people, including four suspected gunmen, in connection with a shooting that killed at least 115 people at a concert hall near Moscow, the Kremlin said on Saturday.
The Islamic militant group Islamic State claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack, the deadliest in Russia in 20 years. But there were indications that Russia was pursuing a link with Ukraine, despite a statement by Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak that Kiev had nothing to do with it.
The FSB security service said that “all four terrorists” were arrested as they headed towards the Ukrainian border and that they had contacts in Ukraine. It said they would be transferred to Moscow.
“Now we know in which country these damn bastards intended to hide: Ukraine,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Telegram.
A Russian lawmaker, Andrei Kartapolov, said that if Ukraine was involved, Russia should provide a “dignified, clear and concrete” response on the battlefield.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said the death toll rose to at least 115 from the attack, in which gunmen in camouflage opened fire with automatic weapons on concertgoers in the Crocus town hall, near the capital.
Some died from gunshot wounds and others in a huge fire that broke out in the complex. The gunmen reportedly started the fire using gasoline contained in the jerry cans they carried in their backpacks.
People fled in panic. Baza, a news outlet with good contacts in Russian security and law enforcement, said 28 bodies were found in a bathroom and 14 on a staircase. “Many mothers were found hugging their children,” she reads.
The Kremlin said FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov told President Vladimir Putin that those arrested included “four terrorists” and that the service was working to identify their accomplices.
Russian MP Alexander Khinshtein said the attackers fled into a Renault (EPA:) vehicle that was spotted by police in the Bryansk region, about 340 km (210 miles) southwest of Moscow on Friday night and disobeyed instructions to stop.
He said two were arrested after a car chase and two others fled into a forest. From the Kremlin account it appears that they too were subsequently arrested.
Khinshtein said a pistol, a magazine for an assault rifle and Tajikistan passports were found in the car. Tajikistan is a Muslim-majority Central Asian state that was part of the Soviet Union.
SHOOTS AND SCREAMS
Verified video showed people taking seats in the concert hall, then running for the exits as repeated gunshots echoed above screams. Another video showed men shooting at groups of people. Some victims lay motionless in pools of blood.
“Suddenly there were shots behind us, shots. A barrage of shots, I don’t know what,” one witness, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters.
Long queues formed for blood donations in Moscow on Saturday. Health officials said more than 120 people were injured.
“The death toll is expected to increase,” the investigative committee looking into major crimes in Russia said on Telegram.
The city of Moscow and the regional government said they would provide financial support to the families of the victims and injured, as well as pay for funerals.
Islamic State, the militant group that once sought control over swaths of Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for the attack, the group’s Amaq agency on Telegram said.
Islamic State said its fighters attacked on the outskirts of Moscow, “killing and wounding hundreds of people and causing great destruction at the location before they retreated safely to their bases.” The statement provided no further details.
US INTELLIGENCE
The United States has intelligence information that confirms Islamic State’s claim to be responsible for the shooting, a U.S. official said Friday. The official said Washington had warned Moscow in recent weeks of the possibility of an attack.
“We adequately warned the Russians,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity, without providing further details.
The attack on the Crocus town hall, about 20km from the Kremlin, came two weeks after the US embassy in Russia warned that “extremists” had imminent plans for an attack on Moscow.
Hours before the embassy’s alert, the FSB said it had foiled an attack on a Moscow synagogue by an affiliate group of the Islamic State in Afghanistan, known as ISIS-Khorasan or ISIS-K, which aims to caliphate in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Iran.
Putin changed the course of the Syrian civil war by intervening in 2015, supporting President Bashar al-Assad against the opposition and the Islamic State.
“ISIS-K has fixated on Russia for the past two years, often criticizing Putin in its propaganda,” said Colin Clarke of the Soufan Center.
The broader Islamic State group has claimed deadly attacks in the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Europe, the Philippines and Sri Lanka.
WORLDWIDE REACTION
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zakharova said it was a “bloody terrorist attack” that the world should condemn.
The United States, European and Arab powers and many former Soviet republics expressed shock and sent their condolences. The United Nations Security Council condemned what it called a “heinous and cowardly terrorist attack.”
Russia has tightened security at airports, transport hubs and across the capital, a vast urban area of more than 21 million people. All large-scale public events have been canceled across the country.
Putin, who was re-elected on Sunday to a new six-year term, has sent thousands of troops to Ukraine in 2022 and has repeatedly warned that various powers – including Western countries – are trying to sow chaos in Russia.