Russia in national mourning after massacre in concert hall near Moscow
Russians are called to gather on Sunday for a day of national mourning. With more than 130 dead, the attack on Friday in a concert hall near Moscow is the bloodiest to have been claimed by IS in Europe. In the rubble of the building ravaged by the flames, research continues.
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Russia is observing a day of national mourning on Sunday March 24 after the massacre in a concert hall in Moscow, claimed by the Islamic State (IS) organization.
“The whole country is in mourning with those who lost their loved ones in this inhuman tragedy,” Russian public television channel Rossia 24 launched on Sunday morning. It broadcast images from a huge digital panel installed on the walls of the concert hall attacked: a candle on a black background and the inscription “Crocus City Hall. 03/22/2024. We are in mourning…”.
Individuals burst into Crocus City Hall on Friday evening, before opening fire with automatic weapons on the crowd and starting a fire with an flammable liquid according to investigators, killing at least 133 people.
Denouncing a “barbaric terrorist” act, Vladimir Putin, in a televised address on Saturday, promised to punish the culprits. The Russian president announced that “the four perpetrators” of the attack had been arrested “while they were heading towards Ukraine”, without mentioning the IS claim.
The Kremlin had earlier announced “the arrest of 11 people, including four terrorists involved in the attack.” These four “foreign citizens” were captured in the Bryansk region, bordering Ukraine and Belarus, according to the authorities.
Continued search in the rubble
This attack, which occurred in the concert hall located in Krasnogorsk, northwest of the Russian capital, is the deadliest in Russia in twenty years, and the bloodiest to have been claimed by ISIS in Europe.
The death toll stood at 133 dead and 152 injured on Sunday morning, according to the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry.
Searches in the rubble of the building ravaged by flames and whose roof has partially collapsed are continuing and could take days. Heavy equipment arrived on site Saturday evening to dismantle damaged structures and remove debris, the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said.
Putin does not mention the jihadist claim
ISIS, which Russia is fighting in Syria and which is also active in the Russian Caucasus, has already carried out attacks in the country since the end of the 2010s. But the group has never claimed responsibility for an attack of such magnitude. magnitude.
On one of its Telegram accounts, IS had claimed on Friday evening that the attack had been carried out by four of its members, and was part of “the context (…) of the raging war” between the group and “countries fighting Islam.”
According to the Site group, which specializes in anti-terrorism research, a video apparently shot by the attackers of the concert hall near Moscow was broadcast on social media accounts usually used by ISIS.
See alsoAttack near Moscow: “The dispute between Russia and the Islamic State is very old”
This one minute and 31 second video shows several individuals with blurred faces and garbled voices, armed with assault rifles and knives, in what appears to be the lobby of the Crocus City Hall concert hall in Krasnogorsk.
The attackers fired several bursts, numerous inert bodies littered the ground and we could see the start of a fire in the background.
However, neither Vladimir Putin nor the security services (FSB) have accused the jihadist group.
Ukrainian denial
The FSB claimed that the suspects had “proper contacts on the Ukrainian side” and planned to flee to that country, without providing further details on the nature of these links or proof of their existence.
“Ukraine has not the slightest link with the incident,” insisted the adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, Mykhaïlo Podoliak, rejecting “absurd” accusations.
Read alsoAttack on Moscow: Zelensky accuses Putin of wanting to “shift the blame” onto Ukraine
The head of public media RT, Margarita Simonian, published videos purporting to show confessions of two suspects during their interrogations, in which they do not name a sponsor. AFP is unable to confirm their veracity.
Despite IS's claim, many questions remain unanswered. According to Russian media and MP Alexander Khinstein, some of the suspects are from Tajikistan. The authorities of this Central Asian country said they had “not received confirmation from the Russian authorities” on this subject.
With AFP
Source: France24
