Russia says 60 useless, 145 injured in live performance corridor raid

MOSCOW (AP) — Assailants burst into a big live performance corridor in Moscow on Friday and sprayed the group with gunfire, killing over 60 folks, injuring greater than 100 and setting hearth to the venue in a brazen assault simply days after President Vladimir Putin cemented his grip on energy in a extremely orchestrated electoral landslide.

The Islamic State group claimed accountability for the assault in an announcement posted on affiliated channels on social media. A U.S. intelligence official informed The Related Press that U.S. intelligence companies had realized the group’s department in Afghanistan was planning an assault in Moscow and shared the data with Russian officers.

It wasn’t instantly clear what occurred to the attackers after the raid, which state investigators have been investigating as terrorism.

The assault, which left the live performance corridor in flames with a collapsing roof, was the deadliest in Russia in years and got here because the nation’s struggle in Ukraine dragged into a 3rd 12 months. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin known as the raid a “huge tragedy.”

The Kremlin stated Putin was knowledgeable minutes after the assailants burst into Crocus Metropolis Corridor, a big music venue on Moscow’s western edge that may accommodate 6,200 folks.

The assault happened as crowds gathered for a efficiency by the Russian rock band Picnic. The Investigative Committee, the highest state felony investigation company, reported early Saturday that greater than 60 folks have been killed. Well being authorities launched an inventory of 145 injured — 115 of them hospitalized, together with 5 kids.

Some Russian information stories advised extra victims might have been trapped by the blaze that erupted after the assailants threw explosives.

Video confirmed the constructing on hearth, with an enormous cloud of smoke rising via the night time sky. The road was lit up by the blinking blue lights of dozens of firetrucks, ambulances and different emergency automobiles, as hearth helicopters buzzed overhead to dump water on the blaze that took hours to include.

The prosecutor’s workplace stated a number of males in fight fatigues entered the live performance corridor and fired on concertgoers.

Dave Primov, who was within the corridor in the course of the assault, described panic and chaos when the assault started.

“There were volleys of gunfire,” Primov informed the AP. “We all got up and tried to move toward the aisles. People began to panic, started to run and collided with each other. Some fell down and others trampled on them.”

Movies posted by Russian media and on messaging app channels confirmed males toting assault rifles capturing screaming folks at point-blank vary. One video confirmed a person within the auditorium saying the assailants had set it on hearth, as gunshots rang out incessantly.

Guards on the live performance corridor did not have weapons, and a few might have been killed initially of the assault, Russian media reported. Some Russian information shops advised the assailants fled earlier than particular forces and riot police arrived. Experiences stated police patrols have been searching for a number of automobiles the attackers might have used to flee.

In an announcement posted by its Aamaq information company, the Islamic State group stated it attacked a big gathering of “Christians” in Krasnogorsk on Moscow’s outskirts, killing and wounding a whole lot. It was not instantly attainable to confirm the authenticity of the declare.

Nevertheless, U.S. intelligence officers confirmed the declare by the Islamic State group’s department primarily based in Afghanistan that it was answerable for the Moscow assault, a U.S. official informed the AP.

The official stated U.S. intelligence companies had gathered data in current weeks that the IS department was planning an assault in Moscow. He stated U.S. officers privately shared the intelligence earlier this month with Russian officers. The official was briefed on the matter however was not approved to publicly talk about the intelligence data and spoke to the AP on situation of anonymity.

Noting that the IS assertion solid its declare as an assault focusing on Christians, Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, an professional on the terrorist group, stated it appeared to mirror the group’s technique of “striking wherever they can as part of a global ‘fight the infidels and apostates everywhere.'”

In October 2015, a bomb planted by IS downed a Russian passenger aircraft over Sinai, killing all 224 folks on board, most of them Russian vacation-goers getting back from Egypt. The group, which operates primarily in Syria and Iraq but additionally in Afghanistan and Africa, additionally has claimed a number of assaults in Russia’s risky Caucasus and different areas up to now years. It recruited fighters from Russia and different components of former Soviet Union.

On March 7, Russia’s high safety company stated it thwarted an assault on a synagogue in Moscow by an Islamic State cell, killing a number of of its members within the Kaluga area close to the Russian capital. A number of days earlier, Russian authorities stated six alleged IS members have been killed in a shootout in Ingushetia in Russia’s Caucasus area.

On Friday, statements of concern, shock and assist for these affected by the live performance name assault streamed in from all over the world.

Some commentators on Russian social media questioned how authorities, who relentlessly surveil and strain Kremlin critics, didn’t determine the risk and stop the assault.

Russian officers stated safety was tightened at Moscow’s airports, railway stations and the capital’s sprawling subway system. Moscow’s mayor canceled all mass gatherings, and theaters and museums shut for the weekend. Different Russian areas additionally tightened safety.

The Kremlin did not instantly blame anybody for the assault, however some Russian lawmakers have been fast to accuse Ukraine and known as for ramping up strikes. Hours earlier than the assault, the Russian navy l aunched a sweeping barrage on Ukraine’s energy system, crippling the nation’s largest hydroelectric plant and different vitality amenities and leaving greater than one million folks with out electrical energy.

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Safety Council, stated that if Ukraine involvement was confirmed, all these concerned “must be tracked down and killed without mercy, including officials of the state that committed such outrage.”

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, denied Ukraine involvement.

“Ukraine has never resorted to the use of terrorist methods,” he posted on X. “Everything in this war will be decided only on the battlefield.”

John Kirby, spokesman for the White Home Nationwide Safety Council, stated he could not but communicate concerning the particulars however “the images are just horrible. And just hard to watch.”

Friday’s assault adopted an announcement earlier this month by the U.S. Embassy in Moscow that urged People to keep away from crowded locations in view of “imminent” plans by extremists to focus on giant gatherings within the Russian capital, together with live shows. The warning was repeated by a number of different Western embassies.

Nationwide Safety Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson stated Friday the U.S. authorities had details about a deliberate assault in Moscow, prompting the State Division advisory to People. The U.S. authorities shared the data with Russian authorities in accordance with its longstanding “duty to warn” coverage, Watson stated.

Putin, who prolonged his grip on Russia for an additional six years on this week’s presidential vote after a sweeping crackdown on dissent, denounced the Western warnings as an try to intimidate Russians. “All that resembles open blackmail and an attempt to frighten and destabilize our society,” he stated earlier this week.

Russia was shaken by a collection of lethal terror assaults within the early 2000s in the course of the combating with separatists within the Russian province of Chechnya.

In October 2002, Chechen militants took about 800 folks hostage at a Moscow theater. Two days later, Russian particular forces stormed the constructing and 129 hostages and 41 Chechen fighters died, most from results of narcotic gasoline Russian forces use to subdue the attackers.

In September 2004, about 30 Chechen militants seized a faculty in Beslan in southern Russia taking a whole lot of hostages. The siege led to a massacre two days later and greater than 330 folks, about half of them kids, have been killed.