Moscow After more than 130 people died in Friday’s attack at a concert hall in Russia Today (Sunday) has been declared as National Mourning Day.
It was the bloodiest attack in Europe ISIS (Islam State) group accepted.
According to the news agency AFP, the President of Russia Vladimir Putin While vowing to punish those involved in this ‘brutal terrorist attack’, it has said that four armed men who tried to escape to Ukraine have been arrested.
However, Kiev has strongly denied any such connection and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russian President Putin of trying to shift the blame to him.
In his first public statement about the attack, President Putin made no reference to ISIS’s claim of responsibility.
On Friday evening, gunmen stormed the Kraków City Hall in the northern Moscow suburb of Krasnogorsk, where at least 133 people were killed in a shooting and the attackers later set the building on fire.
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Daesh wrote on its Telegram channel on Saturday that the attack was carried out by four fighters armed with machine guns, a pistol, knives and firebombs as part of a ‘war’ with ‘countries fighting against Islam’.
A video and pictures are also circulating on social media, which has been published by Daesh through its news channel ‘Amaq’.
In the video, four men with guns can be seen shooting at people as they make their way to the concert hall.
Daesh also released pictures of the four militants and said three of them were shooting at people and the fourth set fire to the hall.
It is the deadliest attack in Russia in nearly two decades.
Russian authorities fear that the death toll could rise further as more than 100 wounded are being treated in hospital.
Russia’s Investigative Committee, which investigates major crimes, said rescue workers were still removing bodies from the burned building on Saturday.
The Emergencies Ministry has so far named 29 victims as the burns have complicated the process of identifying people.
The ministry posted a video on Sunday showing heavy equipment arriving at the crash site to demolish the structures of the damaged building and clear the debris.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in his televised address on Saturday that ‘terrorists, murderers, inhumans… unfortunately have only one fate: revenge and oblivion.’
He described the attack as a ‘barbaric and terrorist act’ and said that the four main attackers. Those who shot and killed people have been found and taken into custody.’
Russian television showed security services interrogating four bloodied men, who were speaking Russian, on a road in the western Bryansk region on the border between Ukraine and Belarus.
“He tried to escape and was traveling to Ukraine, where, according to preliminary information, a route had been prepared for him to cross the state border into Ukraine,” President Putin said.
However, in a speech on Saturday evening, Ukrainian President Zelensky rejected the impression that Kiev was involved.
“What happened yesterday in Moscow is clear,” he said. Putin and others are just trying to blame it on someone else.’
The FSB security service says that Russia has arrested 11 people in connection with the attack. Earlier, the agency said the attackers had ‘connections’ in Ukraine.
National mourning
President Putin has declared Sunday a day of national mourning. He promised: ‘All perpetrators, abettors and those who ordered this crime will be punished justly and strictly.’
The investigative committee says the death toll has so far reached 133, and the governor of the Moscow region says rescue workers will continue to search the scene for several days.
About 107 people are still being treated in hospital, many of them in a critical condition, Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova said.
ISIS first claimed responsibility for the attack on Friday night and repeated it on Saturday.
Security personnel and aid workers stand at the site after a shooting and explosion at the Croix City Hall in Moscow on March 22, 2024 (AFP)
Some witnesses filmed the gunmen from the upper floors as they walked through the stalls shooting people and shared the footage on social media.
The inquiry committee said the terrorists then set fire to the concert hall premises using flammable liquid, where spectators were present including the injured.
Investigators say people died from gunshot wounds and smoke inhalation after the 6,000-seat auditorium caught fire.
Investigators say an award will be given to the man who ‘saved the lives of those around him’ by ‘immobilizing’ him by jumping on a gunman who opened fire on concertgoers.
Putin did not address ISIS’ claim of responsibility in his first public statement on Saturday, more than 18 hours after the attack began.
But in Washington, the White House condemned the attack in a statement, calling the group a “common terrorist enemy that must be defeated everywhere.”
Margarita Simonyan, the head of the state-run RT media agency, posted two videos of the interrogation of two suspects in handcuffs. Both confessed to the attack but did not say who carried it out.
The Ministry of Interior says that the four suspected armed men were foreign nationals.
Russian Telegram channels – including those linked to the security services – say they are from Tajikistan, a country bordering Afghanistan where the jihadist group is active.
Tajikistan’s foreign ministry told Russia’s Tass news agency that it was in contact with Moscow on the issue.
In this March 23, 2024 photo, a woman lays flowers in memory of those killed in the Moscow concert attack outside the Russian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey (AFP)
Rush outside hospitals
In Moscow, citizens stood in long lines in the rain to donate blood for hospitalized patients and mourners laid flowers outside the concert hall.
Some advertising billboards in the capital were replaced by commemorative posters with a single candle and major events were canceled across the country.
Just three days earlier, Putin had publicly dismissed US warnings of an attack in Moscow as propaganda designed to scare Russian citizens.
The US Embassy in Russia on March 7 advised caution over the next 48 hours, warning that “extremists plan to target large gatherings in Moscow, including concerts.”
Washington said it had shared details directly with Moscow after the attack.
But speaking to FSB chiefs last Tuesday, Putin described it as an “outrageous” statement and “complete blackmail”, which he said was “intimidated and destabilized in our society”. ‘
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