11 individuals are detained by Russia following an Islamic State-claimed assault on a performance theater

The director of Russia’s Federal Security Service informed President Vladimir Putin on Saturday that eleven individuals had been arrested after gunmen invaded a performance venue in Moscow and started firing on the audience, according to Russian official news agency Tass.

 

According to Russian police on Saturday, the assault claimed the lives of at least 93 individuals, three of them were children.

pictures released by the Russian government On Saturday, a number of rescue trucks were stationed outside the wreckage of Crocus City Hall, a retail center and concert hall situated in Krasnogorsk, on the western outskirts of Moscow. The facility could accommodate over 6,000 patrons.

The incident on Friday occurred just a few days after President Vladimir Putin solidified his hold on power with a carefully planned election sweep. As Russia’s war in Ukraine stretched into a third year, the nation saw its worst strike in years.

Online videos showed shooters inside the venue killing bystanders at close range. After hours of battling a fire that broke out during the assault, the roof of the theater, where large audiences had gathered on Friday for a concert by the Russian rock band Picnic, fell in the early hours of Saturday morning.

According to Tass, four of the people in custody were actively engaged in the assault.

In a statement released on associated social media platforms, the Islamic State organization claimed credit for the assault; however, neither the Russian security agencies nor the Kremlin have formally placed the blame.

The Islamic State’s offshoot in Afghanistan claimed to have assaulted a large group of “Christians” in Krasnogorsk in a statement published by its Aamaq news agency. It was not able to confirm the claim’s veracity right away.

But according to a U.S. intelligence official who spoke with The Associated Press, U.S. intelligence agencies have verified that IS was behind the assault.

On Saturday, police personnel guard a location close to Crocus City Hall on Moscow’s western outskirts in Russia.
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According to the individual, US intelligence services had learned in recent weeks that the IS branch was preparing an assault in Moscow. US officials had already this month secretly shared this knowledge with Russian counterparts.

The official talked to the AP on condition of anonymity despite having been briefed on the subject and not being authorized to publicly disclose the intelligence data.

Since then, messages of astonishment, indignation, and solidarity with the impacted people have poured in from all around the globe.

The United Nations Security Council denounced “the heinous and cowardly terrorist attack” on Friday and emphasized the urgency of holding those responsible for their actions accountable. Additionally, according to his spokesperson, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres denounced the terrorist incident “in the strongest possible terms.”

According to Russia’s health ministry, hundreds of people lined up on Saturday morning in Moscow to give plasma and blood.

Following a massive crackdown on opposition, Putin extended his hold on power for a another six years this week in the presidential election. He had previously openly criticized Western warnings of a possible terrorist strike as an effort to scare Russians. He said earlier this week that “everything that looks like open blackmail and an attempt to frighten and destabilize our society.”

All 224 passengers on board, the most of them Russian vacationers returning from Egypt, were killed when an Islamic State-planting explosives brought down a Russian passenger airliner over Sinai in October 2015. The organization has claimed many strikes in Russia’s dangerous Caucasus and other areas in recent years. It mostly works in Syria and Iraq, but it also has operations in Afghanistan and Africa. Fighters from Russia and other former Soviet states were recruited by it.