Members of the Russian Emergencies Ministry carry out search-and-rescue operations at the Crocus City Hall concert venue after a shooting attack and fire, outside Moscow, Russia, on March 24, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Russia on May 24 admitted for the first time that Islamic State coordinated the deadly concert hall attack in Moscow in March.

Moscow concert hall shooting updates

“In the course of the investigation… it has been established that the preparations, the financing, the attack and the retreat of the terrorists were coordinated via the internet by members of Khorasan Province (IS-K),” a branch of IS active in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Alexander Bortnikov, the head of FSB, was quoted as saying by the RIA Novosti news agency.

IS has claimed responsibility on multiple occasions for the March 22 attack which killed more than 140 people, but Moscow has repeatedly tried to link Ukraine and the West to the attack.

Moscow, Russia:

The Kremlin said Saturday that President Vladimir Putin was still pained by last week’s massacre at a Moscow concert hall, even if this was not outwardly visible.

More than one week after gunmen entered Crocus City Hall on the outskirts of the capital, killing 144 people and injuring hundreds more, Putin has not publicly met with survivors or visited the scene of the attack.

This is despite Russian media reporting that Western diplomats, including those from the European Union and United States, visited a makeshift memorial for victims outside the venue on Saturday.

Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a state TV reporter that Putin was dealing with the tragedy in his own way.

“Believe me, if you don’t see tears on his face, it doesn’t mean he’s not in pain. And what he is going through, it is unlikely that anyone will ever recognise and understand,” he said.

The Kremlin gave no indication this week the Russian leader plans to visit the relatives of those killed in the attack, the country’s deadliest in two decades.

Instead, security agencies have shifted the focus on to who was responsible, detaining a dozen suspects including the four alleged assailants from Tajikistan.

Islamic State group jihadists have said several times since last Friday’s attack that they were responsible, and IS-affiliated media channels have published graphic videos of the gunmen inside the venue.

While Putin has acknowledged “radical Islamists” carried out the carnage, he has continued to allege arch-foe Ukraine was involved somehow, without providing any evidence.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

People gather near a makeshift memorial near the Crocus City Hall following a deadly attack on the concert venue outside Moscow, Russia, March 29, 2024. REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina
| Photo Credit: EVGENIA NOVOZHENINA

Nine persons have been detained by Tajikistan’s state security service over suspected contact with the perpetrators of last week’s attack by gunmen on a suburban Moscow concert hall that killed 144 people, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti said on March 29.

“Nine residents of the Vakhdat district were detained for contact with the persons who committed the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall on March 22,” the agency reported, citing information from an unnamed source in Tajikistan’s special services, who said that Russian security forces were also involved in the operation to detain the suspects.

Editorial |Terror in Moscow: On concerns over the Islamic State

Those detained are also suspected of having connections with the Islamic State group, according to RIA Novosti.

Russia’s Investigative Committee said on Thursday it had detained another suspect in relation to the raid on Crocus City Hall, on suspicion of being involved in financing the attack. It did not give further details of the suspect’s identity or alleged actions.

Russian 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.

The death toll from the raid continues to rise, with the number of deaths increasing to 144 on Friday when a severely injured victim died in a hospital, according to Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko.

Russia on Tuesday sought to shift blame for the Moscow concert hall attack onto Ukraine and its Western backers, despite the Islamic State group claiming responsibility for the massacre of at least 139 people.

The Kremlin’s security services have been scrambling to explain how gunmen on Friday managed to carry out the worst attack in Russia in over two decades.

President Vladimir Putin has acknowledged that “radical Islamists” conducted the bloody assault, but suggested they were linked to Ukraine, two years into the Kremlin’s offensive on the country.

The head of Russia’s FSB security agency Alexander Bortnikov said Tuesday that while those who had “ordered” the attack had not been identified, the assailants were heading to Ukraine and would have been “greeted as heroes”.

“We believe the action was prepared both by the radical Islamists themselves and, of course, facilitated by Western special services, and Ukraine’s special services themselves have a direct connection to this,” Bortnikov was cited as saying by Russian news agencies.

Ukraine has fiercely rejected any accusations from Moscow that it was tied to the assault, with a top aide to President Volodymyr Zelensky saying the Kremlin was looking to cover up the “incompetence” of its intelligence agencies.

Belarus undermines Kremlin narrative

Russia’s closest international ally, Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko, appeared to undermine the Kremlin’s main narrative — saying that the attackers tried to enter his country first before heading to Ukraine.

“There was no way they could enter Belarus. They saw that. That’s why they turned away and went to the section of the Ukrainian-Russian border,” he said.

The Kremlin has expressed confidence in the country’s powerful security agencies, despite questions swirling over how they failed to thwart the massacre after public and private warnings from the United States.

Islamic State jihadists have said several times since Friday that they were responsible, and IS-affiliated media channels have published graphic videos of the gunmen inside the venue.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday said Paris had information that the jihadists were responsible and warned Russia against exploiting the attack to blame Ukraine.

The concert hall massacre was a major blow for Putin just over a week after he claimed a new term after one-sided elections the Kremlin billed as an endorsement of his military operation against Ukraine.

Putin on Monday said for the first time that “radical Islamists” were behind last week’s attack, but sought to tie it to Kyiv.

Without providing any evidence, Putin connected the attack at Crocus City Hall to a series of incursions into Russian territory by pro-Ukrainian sabotage groups, and said they were all part of efforts to “sow panic in our society”.

Eighth suspect remanded

A court in Moscow meanwhile on Tuesday remanded an eighth suspect in custody over the attack at the Moscow concert hall.

Moscow earlier announced it had detained 11 people in connection with the attack, which saw camouflaged gunmen storm into Crocus City Hall, open fire on concert-goers and set the building ablaze.

The court’s press service said the latest suspect to be remanded was a man originally from the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan.

Officials said he was ordered to be held in detention until at least May 22, without detailing the exact accusations against him.

Four men charged on Sunday with carrying out the attack are citizens of Tajikistan, also in mainly Muslim Central Asia.

Three more suspects — reportedly from the same family and including at least one Russian citizen — were charged on terror-related offences on Monday.

A Turkish official said two of the Tajik suspects had travelled “freely between Russia and Turkey” ahead of the attack.

The two had both spent time in Turkey shortly before the attack and entered Russia together on the same flight from Istanbul, the official said.

All of those held in custody have been charged with terrorism and face up to life in prison.

The Kremlin has so far pushed back at suggestions the death penalty will be re-introduced after the attack.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Members of the Russian Emergencies Ministry clear rubble at the Crocus City Hall concert venue after a shooting attack and fire, outside Moscow, Russia. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Moscow’s Basmanny district court on Sunday charged two suspects in Friday’s concert hall attack in which at least 137 people were killed with an act of terrorism, Russian state news agency TASS reported.

The court listed the suspects as Dalerdzhon Barotovich Mirzoyev and Saidakrami Murodali Rachabalizoda.

The suspects may face life in prison, RIA news agency reported.

Washington:

Ukraine had “no involvement whatsoever” in the massacre in a Moscow concert hall that killed more than 130 people, the White House said Sunday, after Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested a Kyiv connection.

“ISIS bears sole responsibility for this attack. There was no Ukrainian involvement whatsoever,” said White House National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson, using an acronym for the Islamic State group, which has claimed the attack.

There was “no” evidence that Ukraine was involved, agreed Vice President Kamala Harris in an interview with ABC News’ “This Week” that was aired Sunday.

“ISIS-K is actually, by all accounts, responsible for what happened,” she said.

The “K” refers to Khorasan, with the attack being claimed by IS’s branch in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

At least 137 people were killed when camouflaged gunmen rushed into the Crocus City Hall, in Moscow’s northern suburb of Krasnogorsk, and then set fire to the building on Friday evening.

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.

Putin has vowed to punish those behind the “barbaric terrorist attack” — but in his only public remarks on the massacre he made no reference to IS’s claims of responsibility.

Instead he said four gunmen trying to flee to Ukraine had been arrested.

“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,” he said in a televised address to the nation on Saturday.

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

IS-K is a Sunni group that emerged from Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province around 2015, and hopes to install a hardcore Islamic caliphate spanning India, Iran and Central Asia.

The group has carried out dozens of attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Under the Taliban, which regards it as an enemy, analysts say its efficacy inside Afghanistan has been eroded — but that in recent months it has stepped up its activities globally.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

A massive blaze is seen over the Crocus City Hall on the western edge of Moscow, Russia, Friday, March 22, 2024. Several gunmen have burst into a big concert hall in Moscow and fired automatic weapons at the crowd, injuring an unspecified number of people and setting a massive blaze in an apparent terror attack.
| Photo Credit: AP

The U.S. has intelligence confirming Islamic State’s claim of responsibility for a deadly shooting attack at a concert near Moscow on Friday, a U.S. official told Reuters.

Here is information about the Islamic State’s Afghan branch known as ISIS-K and their motives for attacking Russia:

WHAT IS ISIS-K?

Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), named after an old term for the region that included parts of Iran, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, emerged in eastern Afghanistan in late 2014 and quickly established a reputation for extreme brutality.

One of the most active regional affiliates of the Islamic State militant group, ISIS-K has seen its membership decline since peaking around 2018. The Taliban and U.S. forces inflicted heavy losses.

The United States has said its ability to develop intelligence against extremist groups in Afghanistan such as ISIS-K has been reduced since the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country in 2021.

WHAT ATTACKS HAS THE GROUP CARRIED OUT?

ISIS-K has a history of attacks, including against mosques, inside and outside Afghanistan.

Earlier this year, the U.S. intercepted communications confirming the group carried out twin bombings in Iran that killed nearly 100 people.

In September 2022, ISIS-K militants claimed responsibility for a deadly suicide bombing at the Russian embassy in Kabul.

The group was responsible for an attack on Kabul’s international airport in 2021 that killed 13 U.S. troops and scores of civilians during the chaotic U.S. evacuation from the country.

Earlier this month, the top U.S. general in the Middle East said ISIS-K could attack U.S. and Western interests outside of Afghanistan “in as little as six months and with little to no warning.”

WHY WOULD THEY ATTACK RUSSIA?

While the attack by ISIS-K in Russia on March 22 was a dramatic escalation, experts said the group has opposed Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent years.

“ISIS-K has been fixated on Russia for the past two years, frequently criticizing Mr. Putin in its propaganda,” said Colin Clarke of Soufan Center, a Washington-based research group.

Michael Kugelman of the Washington-based Wilson Center said that ISIS-K “sees Russia as being complicit in activities that regularly oppress Muslims.”

He added that the group also counts as members a number of Central Asian militants with their own grievances against Moscow.