Former CIA deputy director examines Moscow concert hall attack

Russia arrests another suspect in concert hall attack that killed 143

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s top investigative body said Thursday that another suspect has been detained as an accomplice in the attack by gunmen on a suburban Moscow concert hall that killed 143 people.

A statement from the Investigative Committee said the latest person detained was involved in financing Friday’s attack on the Crocus City concert hall in which gunmen shot people who were waiting for a show by a popular rock band and then set the building on fire. It did not give further details of the suspect’s identity or alleged actions.

Officials previously said that 11 suspects had been arrested, including four who allegedly carried out the attack. Those four, identified as Tajik nationals, appeared in a Moscow court on Sunday on terrorism charges and showed signs of severe beatings. One appeared to be barely conscious during the hearing.

A faction of the Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the massacre. But Russian officials including President Vladimir Putin have persistently claimed, without presenting evidence, that Ukraine and the West had a role in the attack.

The Investigative Committee statement said it has “confirmed data that the perpetrators of the terrorist attack received significant amounts of money and cryptocurrency from Ukraine, which were used in preparing the crime.”

Ukraine denies involvement and its officials claim that Moscow is pushing the allegation as a pretext to intensify its fighting in Ukraine.

Health officials said Thursday that about 70 people remain hospitalized from injuries in the attack, many of them in severe condition.

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Greek police clash with demonstrators protesting concert by U.S. military cadets

Police in Greece clashed late Wednesday with Communist-backed demonstrators who tried to prevent a concert by U.S. military cadets.

The violent protest occurred in the central Greek city of Larissa ahead of a concert by members of the West Point Glee Club, a musical group of the U.S. Military Academy which is currently on tour in Greece.

Videos and photos shared on social media show police firing tear gas to hold back the demonstrators outside a municipal theater, while officers also clashed with a smaller number of protesters as they entered the building.

It was not immediately clear if the concert took place. Authorities and the venue couldn’t be reached for comment.

Protest organizers from the Greek Communist Party oppose the presence of U.S. troops in Greece as well as Greek military support for Ukraine and involvement in international maritime security missions in the Red Sea.

There were no reports of arrests or injuries.

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What we know about the Moscow concert hall attack claimed by ISIS in Russia

It was Friday evening in Moscow when gunmen burst into Crocus City Hall, an entertainment complex on the outskirts of Russia’s capital, where a rock concert by the group Picnic was about to take place. Video showed at least four people opening fire in the building’s foyer before entering the hall itself and continuing to shoot.

Russian authorities said the attackers then set fire to the hall using flammable liquid. Despite helicopters dropping water over the building, it took 10 hours to extinguish the flames.

The March 22 attack lasted about 20 minutes, and in that time, at least 137 people were killed and at least 60 others critically wounded, CBS News partner network BBC News reported. Here’s what we know:

Who carried out the Moscow attack?

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, ISIS, released a statement on Friday claiming responsibility for the attack. The terrorist group issued another statement the following day that cast the raid as part of ISIS’ ongoing war on countries it claims are fighting against Islam.

In a first for ISIS, the statement released by the group’s media propaganda operation attributed the attack to its Russia branch, which it had never identified as such. Previous attacks had been attributed to ISIS in the Caucasus, referring to a broader region that encompasses part of southern Russia, but also some other nations such as Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.

APTOPIX Russia Shooting — A massive blaze is seen over the Crocus City Hall on the western edge of Moscow, Russia, March 22, 2024, afters gunmen burst into the concert venue and fired automatic weapons at the crowd before setting a massive blaze.

Sergei Vedyashkin/AP

A U.S. intelligence official told CBS News that American agencies had intelligence confirming ISIS was responsible, and said the U.S. had no reason to doubt the claims made by the group.

About 14 hours after reports of shooting began, Russia’s Federal Security Service said 11 suspects had been arrested, four of whom it accused of being directly involved in the attack.

On March 24, four suspects between the ages of 19 and 32 — identified as Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, Saidakrami Murodali Rachabalizoda, Shamsidin Fariduni and Muhammadsobir Fayzov — appeared in a Russian court showing signs of severe beatings. They were charged with acts of terrorism. Russia’s state news agency said the four men were from Tajikistan.

Russia terror suspects appear badly beaten in court

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There has been suspicion, despite the group’s own claim that a domestic Russian branch of ISIS carried out the attack, that its Afghanistan division, ISIS-Khorasan or ISIS-K, was behind the carnage. That suspicion came largely due to warnings issued by the U.S. in the weeks ahead of the attack, and Russian officials claiming to have thwarted other operations planned by ISIS-K in Russia even more recently.

U.S. officials have not said which branch of ISIS they believe carried out the attack, but they have strongly refuted claims from Russian President Vladimir Putin that there may have been some involvement by Ukraine, a neighboring country that Russia invaded more than two years ago, sparking a full-scale, ongoing war.

Ukraine has also denied any involvement in the attack.

In addition to the previously unheard of Russia branch being named as the perpetrators, the Moscow attack also appeared to deviate from most ISIS assaults in that the terrorists fled the scene. Most violent attacks carried out by the group see their operatives fight arriving law enforcement personnel to the death, rather than being captured or fleeing.

What did the U.S. warn about in Russia?

The assault in Moscow came two weeks after the U.S. warned of a potential attack targeting large gatherings in the Russian capital. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow had publicly advised Americans to stay away from events, including concert venues, because of the potential for a terrorist attack.

The U.S. provided intelligence to Russia regarding the potential for an attack under the American intelligence community’s “Duty to Warn” requirement.

“In early March, the U.S. government shared information with Russia about a planned terrorist attack in Moscow,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement. “We also issued a public advisory to Americans in Russia on March 7. ISIS bears sole responsibility for this attack. There was no Ukrainian involvement whatsoever.”

Last week, Putin dismissed the warnings, saying “recent provocative statements by a number of official Western structures about the possibility of terrorist attacks in Russia… resembles outright blackmail and an intention to intimidate and destabilize our society.”

“ISIS bears sole responsibility for this attack,” U.S. National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said in a statement. “There was no Ukrainian involvement whatsoever.”

CBS News’ Khaled Wassef and Tucker Reals contributed to this report.

Haley Ott

Haley Ott is the CBS News Digital international reporter, based in the CBS News London bureau.

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Former CIA deputy director examines Moscow concert hall attack

Former CIA deputy director examines Moscow concert hall attack – CBS News

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Russia has charged four men with terrorism in connection to the deadly concert hall attack that killed more than 130 people in Moscow last week. CBS News’ Debora Patta has the details. Then, former CIA acting and deputy director Michael Morell joins to assess the situation.

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What is ISIS-K, the terror group linked to the Moscow concert hall bombing?

When discussing the biggest threats facing the United States these days, U.S. intelligence officials invariably mention China and Russia, then often segue to cyberattacks, pandemics and climate change.

Islamic extremist terrorism, which animated American foreign policy and defense strategy for a decade and a half after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has receded as a top-tier concern.

The attack that killed 133 people in a Moscow concert hall Friday is a reminder, however, that the terrorism threat still looms.

The group that claimed credit, an offshoot of ISIS called Islamic State in Khorasan, or ISIS-K, has eclipsed the once-fearsome core ISIS organization in Iraq and Syria as perhaps the most dangerous terrorist organization, U.S. officials and outside experts say.

“It’s becoming more of a regional actor,” said Daniel Byman, a counterterrorism specialist at Georgetown University. “It claimed responsibility for the attack in Iran in January, and now we have this devastating attack in Moscow.”

The Iran attack was a double suicide bombing that killed almost 100 people at a memorial for the Revolutionary Guard commander Qassem Soleimani. U.S. officials say ISIS-K also was responsible for the 2021 Abbey Gate bombing outside Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport that killed 13 American service members and 170 Afghan civilians.

Although U.S.-backed fighters five years ago drove the core ISIS from its so-called caliphate in Syria and declared victory, the remnants of the group remained. ISIS-K is believed to be active in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, and appears to have aspirations to attack Europe and the U.S., American officials say.

According to a July 2023 report to the United Nations Security Council, ISIS-K counts 4,000 to 6,000 members on the ground in Afghanistan, including fighters and their relatives.

To be sure, even if most of the U.S. public has largely stopped thinking about groups like ISIS, American defense officials have not. Gen. Michael Kurilla, who heads U.S. Central Command, told a House committee last week that ISIS-K “retains the capability and the will to attack U.S. and Western interests abroad in as little as six months with little to no warning.”

He also warned that core ISIS members are languishing in Syrian detention camps.

“Over 9,000 detainees across 27 different detention facilities in Syria,” Kurilla said. “We need to repatriate those detainees to either face prosecution or reintegration, rehabilitation, back into their societies.”

The good news, from the American perspective, is that the U.S. appears to have significant intelligence insights into the plans and intentions of ISIS-K. U.S. officials warned both Iran and Russia that ISIS-K was poised to attack in those countries before the fact. Putin rejected the warning, but the the U.S. Embassy in Moscow issued a public statement warning Americans to stay away from concert halls.

“That’s pretty impressive,” Byman said. “It shows that U.S. counterterrorism capabilities remain an important factor. If they are trying to do something in Europe or the United States, there is at least a reasonable chance U.S. intelligence might be able to detect it.”

Still, American officials worry that, while they may detect planning that involves a number of terrorists, they cannot guarantee they will discover a plot that involves sending one or two people into the U.S., or one that involves a lone extremist who is already in the country.

Islamic State in Khorasan was founded in 2015 by breakaway members of the Pakistani Taliban. It includes people of Afghan and Pakistani origin, as well as Central Asians. The group is now at war with the Taliban government in Afghanistan, which puts it under pressure.

“I would say that ISIS-K poses a bit of a larger threat, but they are under attack from the Taliban regime right now,” Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told senators earlier this month. “And it’s a matter of time before they may have the ability and intent to actually attack the West at this point.”

A number of ISIS-K plots in Europe have been disrupted, Byman said, including with a wave of arrests of people from Central Asia in Germany and the Netherlands in July.

In January, Turkish officials say two masked members of ISIS-K attacked and killed a person at a Catholic Church in Istanbul.

Russia, which invaded Afghanistan in the 1980s, crushed a rebellion in Muslim-majority Chechnya in the 1990s and backed the Syrian government against ISIS in the 2010s, has long been a target of jihadis, experts say.

“By attacking Russian targets, ISIS-K in part seeks to deter further Russian involvement in the Middle East,” wrote terrorism experts Sara Harmouch and Amira Jadoon. “But also, such attacks provide high publicity for its cause and aim to inspire its supporters worldwide.”

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4 accused in Russia concert hall attack appear in court, apparently badly beaten

Moscow — Four men accused of staging the Russia concert hall attack that killed more than 130 people appeared before a Moscow court Sunday showing signs of severe beatings as they faced formal terrorism charges. One appeared to be barely conscious during the hearing.

A court statement said two of the suspects accepted their guilt in the assault after being charged in the preliminary hearing, though the men’s condition raised questions about whether they were speaking freely. There had been earlier conflicting reports in Russian media outlets that said three or all four men admitted culpability.

Moscow’s Basmanny District Court formally charged Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, 32; Saidakrami Rachabalizoda, 30; Shamsidin Fariduni, 25; and Mukhammadsobir Faizov, 19, with committing a group terrorist attack resulting in the death of others. The offense carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

The court ordered that the men, all of whom are citizens of Tajikistan, be held in pre-trial custody until May 22.

Russian media had reported that the men were tortured during interrogation by the security services, and Mirzoyev, Rachabalizoda and Fariduni showed signs of heavy bruising, including swollen faces,

Rachabalizoda also had a heavily bandaged ear. Russian media said Saturday that one of the suspects had his ear cut off during interrogation. The Associated Press couldn’t verify the report or the videos purporting to show this.

The fourth suspect, Faizov, was brought to court from a hospital in a wheelchair and sat with his eyes closed throughout the proceedings. He was attended by medics while in court, where he wore a hospital gown and trousers and was seen with multiple cuts.

Court officials said Mirzoyev and Rachabalizoda admitted guilt for the attack after being charged.

The hearing came as Russia observed a national day of mourning of the attack Friday on the suburban Crocus City Hall concert venue that killed at least 137 people.

Rescuers continued to search the damaged building and the death toll rose as more bodies were found as family and friends of some of those still missing waited for news. Moscow’s Department of Health said Sunday it had begun identifying the bodies of those killed via DNA testing, adding the process would take at least two weeks.

The attack, which has been claimed by an ISIS affiliate, is the deadliest on Russian soil in years.

Finger pointing in full force

Russian authorities arrested the four suspected attackers Saturday, with seven more detained on suspicion of involvement in the attack, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an address to the nation Saturday night.

Putin appears to be trying to tie Ukraine to the attack, something its government firmly denies.

He called the attack “a bloody, barbaric terrorist act” and said Russian authorities captured the four as they were trying to escape to Ukraine through a “window” prepared for them on the Ukrainian side of the border.

A United States intelligence official told CBS News the U.S. has intelligence confirming that ISIS was responsible and U.S. intelligence has no reason to doubt those claims.

The U.S. Embassy in Russia had also previously advised Americans to stay away from concert venues because of the potential of a terrorist attack. The U.S. intelligence official confirmed to CBS News that the U.S. provided intelligence to Russia regarding the potential for an attack, under the intelligence community’s Duty to Warn requirement.

“ISIS bears sole responsibility for this attack. There was no Ukrainian involvement whatsoever,” National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said in a statement.

Russian media broadcast videos that apparently showed the detention and interrogation of the suspects, including one who told the cameras he was approached by an unidentified assistant of an Islamic preacher and paid to take part in the raid.

Putin didn’t mention ISIS in his speech, and Kyiv accused him and other Russian politicians of falsely linking Ukraine to the assault to stoke fervor for Russia’s war in Ukraine, which recently entered its third year.

The raid was a major embarrassment for Putin and happened just days after he cemented his grip on the country for another six years in a vote that followed the harshest crackdown on dissent since the Soviet times.

Some commentators on Russian social media questioned how authorities, who have relentlessly suppressed any opposition activities and muzzled independent media, failed to prevent the attack despite the U.S. warnings.

ISIS, which fought against Russia during its intervention in the Syrian civil war, has long targeted Russia. In a statement posted by the group’s Aamaq news agency, the ISIS Afghanistan affiliate said it had attacked a large gathering of “Christians” in Krasnogorsk.

The group issued a new statement Saturday on Aamaq, saying the attack was carried out by four men who used automatic rifles, a pistol, knives and firebombs. It said the assailants fired at the crowd and used knives to kill some concertgoers, casting the raid as part of ISIS’ ongoing war with countries it says are fighting against Islam.

In October 2015, a bomb planted by ISIS downed a Russian passenger plane over Sinai, killing all 224 people on board, most of them Russian vacationers returning from Egypt.

The group, which operates mainly in Syria and Iraq but also in Afghanistan and Africa, also has claimed responsibility for several attacks in Russia’s volatile Caucasus and other regions in past years. It recruited fighters from Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union.

As Russia mourns, frantic families of the missing seek answers

Events at cultural institutions were canceled Sunday, flags were lowered to half staff and television entertainment and advertising were suspended, according to state news agency RIA Novosti. A steady stream of people added to a makeshift memorial near the burned-out concert hall, creating a huge mound of flowers.

“People came to a concert, some people came to relax with their families, and any one of us could have been in that situation. And I want to express my condolences to all the families that were affected here and I want to pay tribute to these people,” Andrey Kondakov, one of the mourners who came to lay flowers at the memorial, told the AP.

“It is a tragedy that has affected our entire country,” kindergarten employee Marina Korshunova said. “It just doesn’t even make sense that small children were affected by this event.” Three children were among the dead.

Igor Pogadaev was desperately seeking any details about his wife, Yana Pogadaeva, who went to the concert. The last he heard from her was when she sent him two photos from the Crocus City Hall music venue.

After Pogadaev saw the reports of gunmen opening fire on concertgoers, he rushed to the site, but couldn’t find her in the numerous ambulances or among the hundreds of people who had made their way out of the venue.

“I went around, searched, I asked everyone, I showed photographs. No one saw anything, no one could say anything,” Pogadaev told the AP in a video message.

He watched flames bursting out of the building as he made frantic calls to a hotline for relatives of the victims, but received no information.

As the death toll mounted Saturday, Pogodaev scoured hospitals in the Russian capital and the Moscow region, looking for information on newly admitted patients.

His wife wasn’t among the 182 reported injured, nor on the list of 60 victims authorities had already identified, he said.

The Moscow Region’s Emergency Situations Ministry posted a video Sunday showing equipment dismantling the damaged music venue to give rescuers access.

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Russia observes national day of mourning as concert hall attack death toll climbs to 137

Russia on Sunday observed a national day of mourning in the aftermath of an attack at a suburban Moscow concert hall left more than 130 people dead.

Family and friends of those missing were still waiting for news of their loved ones two days after the massacre, which also left some 150 people injured. The death toll, initially placed at around 40, had risen to 137 as of Sunday, intelligence officials said.

To mark the day of mourning, events at cultural institutions were canceled, flags were lowered to half-staff and television entertainment and advertising were suspended, according to state news agency RIA Novosti. A steady stream of people added to a makeshift memorial near the burnt-out concert hall, creating a huge mound of flowers.

The attack, which has been claimed by an affiliate of the Islamic State group, is the deadliest on Russian soil in years.

“The shots were constant,” eyewitness Dave Primov told CBS News. “People panicked and started to run. Some fell down and were trampled on.”

As rescuers continue to search the damaged building and the death toll rises as more bodies are found, some families still don’t know if relatives who went to the event targeted by gunmen on Friday are alive. Moscow’s Department of Health said Sunday it has begun identifying the bodies of those killed via DNA testing, which will need at least two weeks.

Igor Pogadaev was desperately seeking any details of his wife’s whereabouts after she went to the concert and stopped responding to his messages.

Death toll rises in Russia terror attack

01:24

He hasn’t seen a message from Yana Pogadaeva since she sent her husband two photos from the Crocus City Hall music venue.

“I went around, searched, I asked everyone, I showed photographs. No one saw anything, no one could say anything,” Pogadaev told the AP in a video message.

He watched flames bursting out of the building as he made frantic calls to a hotline for relatives of the victims, but received no information.

As the death toll mounted on Saturday, Pogodaev scoured hospitals in the Russian capital and the Moscow region, looking for information on newly admitted patients.

But his wife wasn’t among the 154 reported injured, nor on the list of 50 victims authorities have already identified, he said.

Refusing to believe that his wife could be one of the 137 people who died in the attack, Pogadaev still hasn’t gone home.

“I couldn’t be alone anymore, it’s very difficult, so I drove to my friend’s,” he said. “Now at least I’ll be with someone.”

The Moscow Region’s Emergency Situations Ministry posted a video Sunday showing equipment dismantling the damaged music venue to give rescuers access.

Meanwhile, President Vladimir Putin appears to be trying to tie Ukraine to the attack, something its government firmly denies.

A United States intelligence official told CBS News that the U.S. has intelligence confirming that the Islamic State was responsible, and they do not have reason to doubt those claims. The U.S. Embassy in Russia had also previously advised Americans to stay away from concert venues because of the potential threat of a terrorist attack. The U.S. intelligence official confirmed to CBS News that the U.S. provided intelligence to Russia regarding the potential for an attack, under the intelligence community’s Duty to Warn requirement.

“ISIS bears sole responsibility for this attack. There was no Ukrainian involvement whatsoever,” National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said in a statement.

Russian authorities arrested four suspected attackers on Saturday, Putin said in a nighttime address to the nation, among 11 people detained on suspicion of involvement in the attack. He said that they were captured while fleeing to Ukraine.

Though no court hearing has been officially announced, there was a heavy police presence around Moscow’s Basmanny District Court on Sunday. Police tried to drive journalists away from the court.

Eleven people arrested after deadly attack at concert hall in Russia

02:32

Putin called the attack “a bloody, barbaric terrorist act” and said Russian authorities captured the four suspects as they were trying to escape to Ukraine through a “window” prepared for them on the Ukrainian side of the border.

Russian media broadcast videos that apparently showed the detention and interrogation of the suspects, including one who told the cameras he was approached by an unidentified assistant to an Islamic preacher via a messaging app and paid to take part in the raid.

Kyiv strongly denied any involvement, and the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate claimed responsibility.

Putin didn’t mention ISIS in his speech to the nation, and Kyiv accused him and other Russian politicians of falsely linking Ukraine to the assault to stoke fervor for Russia’s fight in Ukraine, which recently entered its third year.

The raid was a major embarrassment for the Russian leader and happened just days after he cemented his grip on the country for another six years in a vote that followed the harshest crackdown on dissent since the Soviet times.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement that the U.S. condemned the attack and said that the Islamic State group is a “common terrorist enemy that must be defeated everywhere.”

Moscow concert hall attack — Emergency services are at the scene following a deadly terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall in Moscow, Russa, on March 23, 2024. The assault on a popular concert hall marks the deadliest act of terrorism in the Russian capital in more than a decade.

Vlad Karkov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

ISIS, which fought against Russia during its intervention in the Syrian civil war, has long targeted Russia. In a statement posted by the group’s Aamaq news agency, the ISIS Afghanistan affiliate said that it had attacked a large gathering of “Christians” in Krasnogorsk.

The group issued a new statement Saturday on Aamaq, saying the attack was carried out by four men who used automatic rifles, a pistol, knives and firebombs. It said the assailants fired at the crowd and used knives to kill some concertgoers, casting the raid as part of the Islamic State group’s ongoing war with countries that it says are fighting against Islam.

In October 2015, a bomb planted by ISIS downed a Russian passenger plane over Sinai, killing all 224 people on board, most of them Russian vacationers returning from Egypt.

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Russia observing national day of mourning after concert hall attack

Russia observing national day of mourning after concert hall attack – CBS News

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Russia is observing a national day of mourning on Sunday after more than 130 people were killed in a terrorist attack at a concert venue in Moscow, ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed it was linked to Ukraine — which has been denied by the U.S. and Ukraine. Debora Patta has the latest.

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National day of mourning in Russia after concert hall massacre

Russia was observing a national day of mourning on Sunday after a massacre in a Moscow concert hall killed more than 130 people, the deadliest attack in Europe to have been claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed to punish those behind the “barbaric terrorist attack”, saying four gunmen trying to flee to Ukraine had been arrested.

Kyiv has strongly denied any connection, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accusing Putin of trying to shift the blame onto them.

“The whole country is in mourning with those who lost their loved ones in this inhumane tragedy,” public television channel Russia 24 said on Sunday morning.

Putin, in his only public remarks on the attack, made no reference to IS’s claims of responsibility.

At least 133 people were killed when camouflaged gunmen stormed the Crocus City Hall, in Moscow’s northern suburb of Krasnogorsk, and then set fire to the building on Friday evening.

– ‘Machine guns, knives, firebombs’ –

The Islamic State group on Saturday wrote on Telegram that the attack was “carried out by four IS fighters armed with machine guns, a pistol, knives and firebombs,” as part of “the raging war” with “countries fighting Islam”.

A video lasting about a minute and half apparently shot by the gunmen has been posted on social media accounts typically used by IS, according to the SITE intelligence group.

The video appears to have been filmed from the lobby of the concert venue and shows several individuals with blurred faces and garbled voices, firing assault rifles with inert bodies strewn on the floor and a fire starting in the background.

The attack was the deadliest in Russia since the Beslan school siege in 2004.

Russian officials expect the death toll to rise further, with 110 still in hospital.

Rescue workers were still pulling bodies from the burnt-out building on Sunday as the nation mourned.

The emergency situations ministry has so far named 29 of the victims, the blaze having complicated the process of identification.

The ministry on Sunday posted a video of heavy equipment arriving at the venue to dismantle damaged structures and clear debris.

– ‘Morally crushed’ –

On the streets of the capital on Sunday, there was shock and grief.

“It is a tragedy. I was morally crushed,” Ruslana Baranovskaya, 35, told AFP.

“People don’t smile … everybody feels the loss,” said 73-year-old Valentina Karenina, a pensioner, standing on a street off Red Square, next to the Kremlin in the centre of Moscow.

Museums, theatres and cinemas around the country closed, and billboards were replaced with memorial posters.

Mourners continued to stream to the concert hall in northwest Moscow to lay flowers at a tribute to the victims.

More than 5,000 people donated blood following the attack, officials said, with many standing in long queues outside clinics.

Putin on Saturday had vowed “retribution and oblivion” to the “terrorists, murderers and non-humans” who carried out the “barbaric, terrorist attack.”

Several of his allies have called for the country to lift a moratorium on the death penalty — demands that have sparked concern among Kremlin critics.

Russia says it has arrested 11 in connection with the attack, including all four assailants. It has not named the shooters, but said they were all foreign nationals.

– Putin points to Ukraine –

Putin has pointed to a Ukraine connection and has not publicly addressed IS’s claim of responsibility in the 36 hours since the attack.

“They tried to escape and were travelling towards Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the state border,” Putin said of the four attackers in a televised address to the nation on Saturday — his only public comments so far.

Ukraine’s Zelensky, in his own evening address Saturday, dismissed the suggestion that Kyiv had been involved.

“Putin and the other scum are just trying to blame it on someone else,” he said.

In Moscow, some doubted his claims that Ukraine was involved.

“I’m not inclined to the version about Ukraine’s involvement … this (attack) is more like those committed by Islamist extremists,” said Vomik Aliyev, a 22-year-old Muslim who often went to the concert hall.

– Site search to continue –

Russia’s Investigative Committee said the death toll had reached 133 and the governor of the Moscow region said rescuers would continue to scour the site for “several days.”

Health authorities said Sunday that 110 people were still in hospital, with more than 40 in a “critical” or “extremely critical” condition.

IS had first claimed responsibility for the attack on Friday night, before repeating its claim again on Saturday and then publishing a graphic video of the gunmen carrying out the attack.

After walking through the theatre shooting spectators, they set fire to the building, Russian investigators said, trapping many inside who died from smoke inhalation.

bur-jc/giv

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Zelensky hits back after Russia blames Ukraine for concert attack

As news of the Moscow concert hall attack broke on Friday, Ukrainians knew what was coming: Kyiv would be blamed.

The next thing they expected was more drones and more missiles.

The accusations began almost immediately.

They were just hints at first, until President Vladimir Putin openly claimed that the men who attacked Moscow had tried to flee to Ukraine, helped by contacts there.

Then shortly before dawn on Sunday came the sound of explosions.

When Mr Putin made his comments on Saturday in an address to the Russian nation, Islamic State group (IS) extremists had already announced they had carried out the killings.

The US had confirmed that it passed on intelligence of a threat earlier this month.

Now IS have released a hideously graphic video of their massacre, filmed on bodycams and including shouts of “God is Greatest” from the attackers.

In his evening statement on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was visibly angry that his country was being blamed.

He described the Russian president and others in Moscow as “scum” for linking the attack there to Kyiv.

He suggested a “miserable” Russian leader was more concerned about pinning the attack on Kyiv than reassuring his own citizens.

Mr Zelensky then turned the tables on Moscow, saying it had sent “hundreds of thousands of [its own] terrorists” to Ukraine since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022.

He said those troops were now brutalising Ukraine, instead of protecting Russia against the real threat of extremism.

“They burn our cities… they torture and rape.”

Ukrainian police have opened thousands of criminal cases against Russian soldiers since February 2022, including one killing we investigated where two unarmed civilians were shot in the back.

Members of the Russian Emergencies Ministry clear rubble at the Crocus City Hall concert venue after a deadly attack, outside Moscow, Russia March 23, 2024. — Parts of Crocus City Hall were completely destroyed after the attackers set it alight

Earlier on Saturday, the military intelligence directorate in Kyiv called the specific Russian claim that the gunmen were caught trying to flee across the Ukrainian border “absurd”.

It is an active front line teeming with Russian soldiers and security services.

The idea anyone would head there after staging a major attack on Moscow, Andriy Yusov argued, would be either “suicidal” or “stupid”.

According to Russian officials, the suspects were captured in the Bryansk region on their way west to Ukraine. If that is genuinely where their car was stopped – and we do not know that – they could have been heading for Belarus.

It is a far easier route out of Russia than crossing a minefield to get to Ukraine.

Videos now circulating on social media show the detention of the suspected attackers and part of their interrogation. One shows a Russian agent trying to force a man to eat a piece of his own ear which has been severed. He spits it out.

In another video his head is bandaged and face covered in blood. Any confessions that emerge after such torture could not be treated as reliable.

The video clips were presumably released to showcase a tough response, but that follows an attack which the same security services failed to stop or see coming.

So in his address, Mr Zelensky suggested Russians ask questions of their own intelligence agencies, rather than blaming Ukraine.

That would include asking whether information from the US was ignored.

But Putin’s Russia has been purged of political opposition and independent media, leaving no-one to really hold the authorities to account.

In his address, Ukraine’s president also alluded to a dark theory raised earlier by his military intelligence agency – that the Russian authorities themselves were linked to the Moscow attack.

The supposed motive was to bolster Mr Putin’s hold on power, rally support for his war and further mobilisation.

The comments hark back to long-standing suspicions in Russia over the bombing of apartment blocks in 1999 that was the trigger for Vladimir Putin – who was prime minister at the time – to launch a war on the Chechen Republic.

But Russia and Ukraine are engaged in an information war as well as fighting on the battlefield. The IS video and claim it carried out the attack would cut across Kyiv’s allegations just like it did the accusations from Moscow.

Smoke rises in the sky over Ukraine's capital after a Russian missile strike, 24 March 2024. — Sunday’s missile attacks in Ukraine will have been prepared long before

Sunday morning’s missile launches targeting Ukraine feel like Russia’s war as usual, rather than any escalation in response to the Crocus City Hall attack – yet.

Before dawn on Sunday there were also reports of Ukrainian strikes on Crimea – the peninsula Russia annexed illegally from Ukraine in 2014.

It takes time to prepare a large-scale missile strike, and this is the second by Russia since early on Friday.

The major city of Kharkiv is still largely without power after the attack that day targeted energy infrastructure all over the country.

Ukraine is certainly braced for worse after all the rhetoric from Moscow.

But the Crocus City Hall attack suggests Russia is facing a real and significant danger within its borders – not the fake threat it concocted from Ukraine to justify Vladimir Putin’s 2022 invasion.

That is a worry for the Russian president – a man who hates to look weak.

Which is why Russia is so keen to deflect blame towards Kyiv even when the evidence points in a very different direction.

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