In this photo released by the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations Press Service on Saturday, March 23, 2024, Russian emergency personnel operate inside the Crocus City Hall in the western edge of Moscow, Russia, on Saturday, March 23, 2024, following Friday's attack. Rescue workers from the Ministry of Situations are pictured. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack. Authorities said more than 90 people were killed. (Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations Press Department, Associated Press)
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian authorities have detained 11 people after gunmen stormed a Moscow concert hall in a brutal attack that left at least 115 people dead, state media reported Saturday.
Russia's Investigative Committee said four of those detained were directly involved in the attack, which left a vast shopping mall and music venue smoldering with its collapsed roof.
Despite Islamic State claiming responsibility in a statement, Russian authorities appear to have suggested the attack was linked to Ukraine. A U.S. intelligence official told The Associated Press that U.S. government agencies have confirmed the group was responsible for the attack.
According to the Russian Investigative Committee, the four suspects were arrested in the Bryansk region of western Russia, “not far from the border with Ukraine.” The state news agency TASS reported, citing Russia's Federal Security Service, that they were planning to cross the border into Ukraine, where “there were contacts.” The head of the FSB briefed President Vladimir Putin about the arrests on Saturday, TASS reported.
The attack came just days after President Putin consolidated his grip on power in a highly orchestrated electoral landslide. The attack was Russia's deadliest in years and comes as fighting in Ukraine enters its third year.
Immediately after the attack, some Russian lawmakers blamed Ukraine. Mykhailo Podlyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, denied any involvement.
“Ukraine has never resorted to the use of terrorist means,” 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 showed a swarm of emergency vehicles still massing outside the ruins of the Crocus City Hall, which can accommodate more than 6,000 people, in Krasnogorsk, on the western edge of Moscow. was.
Videos posted online showed gunmen inside the venue shooting civilians at close range. The roof of the theater, where crowds had gathered for a performance by Russian rock band Picnic on Friday, collapsed early Saturday morning as firefighters spent hours extinguishing a fire that broke out during the attack. .
Afghanistan's Islamic State affiliate said in a statement carried by the Aamaq news agency that it had attacked a large gathering of “Christians” in Krasnogorsk. The veracity of the claim could not be immediately confirmed.
A U.S. intelligence official told The Associated Press that U.S. intelligence agencies have been gathering information in recent weeks that an Islamic State affiliate was planning an attack on Moscow, and that U.S. officials shared that information with Russian authorities earlier this month. He said he shared the information privately with others.
The official was briefed on the matter but was not authorized to publicly discuss intelligence information and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Since then, messages of anger, shock and support for those affected have poured in from around the world.
On Friday, the United Nations Security Council condemned the “heinous and despicable terrorist attack” and stressed the need to hold perpetrators accountable. UN Secretary-General António Guterres also condemned the terrorist attack “in the strongest possible terms”, the spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, hundreds of people lined up to donate blood and plasma on Saturday morning in mainland Moscow, Russia's Health Ministry said.
Putin, who extended his rule over Russia for another six years in this week's presidential vote after a sweeping crackdown on dissent, said Western warnings of possible terrorist attacks were an attempt to intimidate Russians. publicly denounced. “These all resemble public threats and are attempts to frighten and destabilize our society,” he said earlier this week.
In October 2015, a bomb planted by the Islamic State group shot down a Russian airliner over Sinai, killing all 224 people on board, most of them Russians on vacation from Egypt. The group operates primarily in Syria and Iraq, but also Afghanistan and Africa, and claims to have carried out several attacks in Russia's volatile Caucasus and other regions over the past few years. It recruited fighters from Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union.
Associated Press writer Michael Balsamo in Washington contributed to this report.
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