International Courant
Russian regulation enforcement officers stroll the scene of a gun assault on Crocus Metropolis Corridor in Krasnogorsk, outdoors Moscow, on March 23, 2024.
Stringer | Episode | Getty Photographs
The music corridor in Moscow’s suburbs the place gunmen opened fireplace on concertgoers was a blackened, smoldering spoil on Saturday because the demise toll within the assault handed 130 and Russian authorities arrested 4 suspects. President Vladimir Putin claimed they have been captured as they fled to Ukraine.
Kiev strongly denied any involvement in Friday’s assault on the Crocus Metropolis Corridor music venue in Krasnogorsk, and the Afghan department of the Islamic State claimed accountability.
Putin made no point out of IS in his handle to the nation, and Kiev accused him and different Russian politicians of falsely linking Ukraine to the assault to ignite Russia’s battle in Ukraine, which lately entered its third 12 months to make.
US intelligence officers confirmed the IS affiliate’s declare.
“ISIS bears sole accountability for this assault. There was no involvement in anyway from Ukraine,” Nationwide Safety Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson stated in a press release.
The US shared info with Russia in early March a couple of deliberate terrorist assault in Moscow and issued a public warning to Individuals in Russia, Watson stated.
A Russian nationwide tricolor flag flutters within the wind close to the burned Crocus Metropolis Corridor live performance corridor, the scene of the gun assault, in Krasnogorsk, outdoors Moscow, on March 23, 2024. Gunmen who opened fireplace in a Moscow live performance corridor killed greater than 60 individuals . individuals and greater than 100 injured as an inferno raged, authorities stated on March 23, 2024, with the Islamic State group claiming accountability.
Stringer | Episode | Getty Photographs
Putin stated authorities detained a complete of 11 individuals within the assault, which additionally injured greater than 100. He known as it “a bloody, barbaric act of terrorism.” He stated Russian authorities captured the 4 suspects as they tried to flee into Ukraine by a “window” ready for them on the Ukrainian aspect of the border.
Russian media broadcast movies exhibiting the detention and interrogation of the suspects, together with one who informed cameras that he had been contacted through a messaging app by an unknown aide to an Islamic preacher and paid to participate within the raid.
Russian information stories recognized the gunmen as residents of Tajikistan, a predominantly Muslim former Soviet republic in Central Asia that borders Afghanistan. As much as 1.5 million Tajiks have labored in Russia and plenty of have Russian citizenship.
Tajikistan’s International Ministry, which denied preliminary Russian media stories reporting a number of different Tajiks allegedly concerned within the raid, didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon the arrests.
Many Russian hardliners known as for a crackdown on Tajik migrants. Nonetheless, Putin appeared to reject the concept, saying: “No pressure will have the ability to sow the toxic seeds of discord, panic or division in our multi-ethnic society.”
He declared Sunday a day of mourning and stated extra safety measures had been imposed throughout Russia.
The variety of deaths was 133, making the assault the deadliest in Russia in years. Authorities stated the toll might nonetheless rise.
The raid was a serious embarrassment for the Russian chief and got here simply days after he consolidated his grip on the nation for an additional six years in a vote that adopted the harshest crackdown on dissent since Soviet instances.
Some commentators on Russian social media questioned how authorities, who’ve ruthlessly suppressed all opposition exercise and muzzled unbiased media, failed to stop the assault regardless of US warnings.
The assault got here two weeks after the US embassy in Moscow issued a discover urging Individuals to keep away from crowded locations in view of extremists’ “imminent” plans to focus on massive gatherings in Moscow, together with concert events. A number of different Western embassies echoed the warning. Earlier this week, Putin denounced the warning as an try and intimidate the Russians.
Investigators scoured the charred rubble of the venue Saturday for extra victims. Russia’s Well being Ministry stated a whole bunch of individuals in Moscow have been queuing to donate blood and plasma.
Putin’s declare that the attackers have been attempting to flee to Ukraine adopted feedback from Russian lawmakers pointing the finger at Ukraine instantly after the assault.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky angrily dismissed Moscow’s accusations as an try by Putin and his lieutenants to shift the blame to Ukraine whereas treating their very own individuals as “expendable commodities.”
“They’re burning our cities – and they’re attempting responsible Ukraine,” he stated in a press release on his messaging app channel. “They torture and rape our individuals – and blame them. They’ve pushed a whole bunch of hundreds of their terrorists right here to battle us on Ukrainian soil, they usually do not care what occurs in their very own nation.”
Work to extinguish the fireplace continues on the Crocus Metropolis Corridor live performance venue close to Moscow, Russia, following stories of a capturing incident on March 23, 2024.
Ali Cura | Anadolu | Getty Photographs
Footage shared by Russian state media confirmed emergency autos nonetheless gathering outdoors the ruins of the live performance corridor, which held greater than 6,000 individuals and hosted many main occasions, together with the 2013 Miss Universe magnificence pageant with Donald Trump within the lead.
There was a big crowd on the location on Friday for a live performance by the Russian rock band Picnic.
Movies posted on-line confirmed armed males contained in the venue capturing civilians at shut vary. Russian information stories quoted authorities and witnesses as saying the attackers threw explosives that began the fireplace, which ultimately destroyed the constructing and prompted the roof to break down.
Dave Primov, who survived the assault, informed the AP that the gunmen within the entrance rows “shot instantly into the group.” He described the chaos within the corridor as concertgoers rushed to flee: “Folks panicked, began working and collided with one another. Some fell and others trampled them.”
After he and others crawled out of the hallway into close by utility rooms, he stated he heard bangs of small explosives and smelled a burning odor because the attackers set the constructing on fireplace. Once they left the big constructing 25 minutes later, it was on fireplace.
“If it had lasted just a bit bit longer, we might have simply stayed there burning,” Primov stated.
Messages of shock, shock and assist for the victims and their households poured in from everywhere in the world.
White Home press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated in a press release that the US condemned the assault, noting that the Islamic State group is a “frequent terrorist enemy that have to be defeated in every single place.”
IS, which has misplaced a lot of its territory following Russian army motion in Syria, has been focusing on Russia for a while. In a press release carried by the group’s Aamaq information company, IS’s Afghan affiliate stated it had attacked a big gathering of “Christians” in Krasnogorsk.
The group issued a brand new assertion on Aamaq on Saturday, saying the assault was carried out by 4 males utilizing automated rifles, a pistol, knives and incendiary gadgets. Based on the group, the attackers shot into the group and used knives to kill some concertgoers. The assault was a part of IS’s ongoing battle with nations that IS believes are combating in opposition to Islam.
In October 2015, a bomb planted by ISIS downed a Russian passenger airplane over Sinai, killing all 224 individuals on board, most of them Russian holidaymakers coming back from Egypt.
The group, which operates primarily in Syria and Iraq but additionally in Afghanistan and Africa, has claimed a number of assaults in Russia’s unstable Caucasus and different areas lately. It recruited fighters from Russia and different components of the previous Soviet Union.
The group’s Afghanistan affiliate is often known as ISIS-Ok or IS-Ok, and takes its identify from Khorasan province. Within the Center Ages, this area coated a big a part of Afghanistan, Iran and Central Asia.
The affiliate has hundreds of fighters who’ve carried out repeated assaults in Afghanistan for the reason that nation was seized in 2021 by the Taliban, a bunch with which they’re in bitter dispute.
ISIS-Ok was behind the August 2021 suicide bombing at Kabul airport, which killed 13 U.S. troops and about 170 Afghans through the chaotic U.S. withdrawal. In addition they claimed accountability for a bombing in Kerman, Iran, in January that killed 95 individuals throughout a memorial parade.
On March 7, simply hours earlier than the US embassy warned of impending assaults, Russia’s high safety service stated it had thwarted an assault on a Moscow synagogue by an IS cell and killed a few of its members within the Kaluga area close to the Russian capital. A number of days earlier, Russian authorities stated six suspected IS members had been killed in a firefight in Ingushetia, Russia’s Caucasus.
Russia has arrested 11 individuals in an assault on a Moscow live performance corridor that killed at the very least 130 individuals
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