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Russia’s FSB security service has arrested 11 people believed to be responsible for an attack on a Moscow rock concert that killed at least 115 people.
The FSB added on Saturday that the four men directly involved in the shooting were part of the arrested group.
News agencies report that the attack was claimed by the terrorist group ISIS. U.S. officials said they had no reason to doubt the credibility of that claim.
But Russian politicians and state media on Saturday hinted that Ukraine, invaded by Vladimir Putin two years ago, was involved in the attack.
Security agency officials said they arrested the gunmen, who were captured in dashcam footage arriving at the scene in a white Renault car, in the Bryansk region, on the border with Ukraine.
The FSB said the men were trying to flee Russia to Ukraine and that they had “relevant contacts” there. Kiev denied any involvement in the attack.
Baza, an anonymous channel on the Telegram messaging app close to Russian police, said the attackers were believed to be from Tajikistan, a Central Asian country that has witnessed ISIS activity in the past. His Foreign Ministry denied the reports.
A video also circulated on Telegram in which Russian security services detain and interrogate a man from Tajikistan on the side of the road in the Bryansk region.
Friday night’s assault on the Crocus town hall shocked Russia and led to an outpouring of grief, with memorials popping up across the country for the victims who were attending a rock concert.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said on Saturday that the death toll was expected to rise.
“Today, at 06:30, emergency rescue services entered the building where the terrible incidents occurred. I just got back from there. We see that the situation is extremely serious,” Moscow Region Governor Andrey Vorobyev said.
“The number of victims will increase significantly,” he added.
Many people were shot and killed by the four gunmen dressed in camouflage as they stormed the building, while others died in a fire that ripped through the place after the attackers set off explosions in the hall.
Images shared by emergency services on Saturday morning showed firefighters removing the charred seating structure in the main auditorium, where people had hidden in chairs when the shooting began.
The shooting represented the largest loss of life in a terrorist attack in Russia in at least a decade and was reminiscent of the Islamist uprisings that marked the first decade of Putin’s rule.
Putin made no statement about the attack. But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “all essential instructions were given by the president.”
Friday’s attack will bring back memories for Muscovites of the siege of Nord-Ost, when Chechen fighters took hundreds of people hostage in a Moscow theater in 2002, leaving more than 170 people dead.
In early March, the US embassy in Moscow and missions in six other Western countries issued an alarm warning of possible attacks on public places, including concerts, in the next 48 hours.
Shortly after Friday night’s attack, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said Crocus City Hall had suffered a “horrific tragedy” and canceled all large public events in the capital planned for the weekend. Many other Russian cities followed suit.
Other images shared on social media on Saturday showed emergency services walking through the charred remains of the concert hall amid pools of blood on the floor.
The US embassy in Moscow said it was “shocked” by the news of the attack and expressed “sincere condolences to the Russian people”.