Today at 17:59
The day before, armed men stormed a rock concert near Moscow, killing at least 90 people and injuring more than 100 others, local authorities said. This is one of the deadliest terrorist attacks to have taken place in Russia in recent years, The Guardian writes.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack, and US officials confirmed the claim, according to media reports.
Eleven people have been detained in connection with the attack, the head of Russia’s Federal Security Service said on Saturday, the international news agency Associated Press reported, citing Russia’s state news agency TASS.
According to the Associated Press, Russia’s Investigative Committee said that four of the detainees were directly involved in the attack, which left the sprawling shopping centre and music hall smouldering with the roof collapsed.
In turn, the Russian media initially spread unconfirmed information that the attack was linked to Ukraine. However, the Islamic State group later claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement.
In a statement released by its Aamaq news agency, the Islamic State’s branch in Afghanistan said it had attacked a large gathering of “Christians” in Krasnogorsk.
A video posted online shows armed men shooting at civilians at point blank range. The roof of the theatre, where crowds had gathered on Friday for a performance by the Russian rock band Picnic, collapsed early Saturday morning as firefighters spent hours extinguishing a fire that broke out during the attack.
A U.S. intelligence official told the Associated Press that U.S. agencies have confirmed that the group was responsible for the attack and that U.S. intelligence agencies had gathered information in recent weeks that an IS affiliate was planning an attack in Moscow, and that U.S. officials privately shared the intelligence earlier this month with Russian officials.
However, Putin has publicly denounced Western warnings of a possible terrorist attack in Moscow as an attempt to intimidate Russians.
The attack comes just days after Putin finally seized control of Russia’s government in a carefully orchestrated fake “presidential election”.
Foreign Ministry of Ukraine categorically rejects the accusations made by Russian officials that Ukraine was involved in the shooting at the Crocus concert hall in Krasnogorsk, Moscow Region.
Advisor to the Head of the Presidential Office Mykhailo Podolyak said that Ukraine had nothing to do with the events at the Crocus City Hall concert hall in Krasnogorsk, Moscow Region.
“Firstly, because we have a full-fledged, full-scale, huge war with the Russian regular army, with Russia as a country. And everything will be decided on the battlefield,” Podolyak said.
Secondly, Ukraine has never used terrorist methods of warfare, unlike the Russian Federation.
“Let me remind you that in recent Russian history, terrorist attacks against its citizens, such as the Kashirskoye Highway or the North-East, have been used on numerous occasions to correct certain subsequent genocidal actions against a particular ethnic group,” Podoliak stressed.
The United States also sees no signs that could point to Ukraine’s involvement in the shooting, explosion and fire at the Crocus City Hall concert hall near Moscow. The statement was officially issued by White House advisor John Kirby.
This is not the first such terrorist attack in Russia. In October 2015, an Islamic State bomb shot down a Russian passenger plane over Sinai, killing all 224 people on board, most of whom were Russian holidaymakers returning from Egypt. The group, which operates mainly in Syria and Iraq, but also in Afghanistan and Africa, has also claimed responsibility for several attacks in the restive Caucasus and other regions of Russia in recent years.
