Andrew Roth reporting for The Guardian in Moscow
Saturday, 24 March 2024
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack late on Friday, in a post on Telegram in which the group claimed its gunmen had managed to escape afterwards.
STOP PRESS: PUTIN SAYS UKRAINE RESPONSIBLE FOR DEATHS OF 115 PEOPLE. ALL THE TERRORISTS HAVE BEEN ARRESTED AND WILL BE “PUNISHED”
Photographs showed the Crocus City Hall engulfed in flames as videos emerged showing at least four gunmen opening fire from automatic weapons as panicked Russians fled for their lives. In one clip, three men in fatigues carrying rifles fired at point blank range into bodies strewn about the lobby of the concert hall.
Children were reportedly among the victims of the attack, in which the assailants also apparently detonated explosives. At least two blasts took place at the concert hall on Friday evening, news agencies reported.
By late evening, Russian authorities had launched a massive manhunt for the gunmen in the attack, warning residents in Moscow and its suburbs to look out for signs of the attackers. The Russian government did not immediately identify any of the suspects.
Video published online showed horrific scenes of some people begging for help from the roof of the concert hall as it burnt behind them. Other video showed images of victims with gunshot wounds being treated in the street outside the building.
At least three emergency helicopters had been deployed to extinguish the fire. There had been a partial collapse of the roof of the Crocus City Mall, local media reported.
Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that the Moscow government would cancel all cultural, sporting, and other mass events for the weekend after the attack, as the Russian railroads and other major utilities said they were increasing security.
Sobyanin called the attack a “great tragedy”. At least 70 ambulances had been dispatched to the site of the attack.
Earlier this month, western countries led by the United States had issued terror warnings and told their citizens not to join public gatherings in Russia. On 8 March, the embassy wrote it was “monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts, and U.S. citizens should be advised to avoid large gatherings over the next 48 hours.”
“The attackers presumably opened fire at the entrance to the building during a concert, using automatic weapons, and then a fire began in the building,” said emergency services. Authorities said that up to five people took part in the attack, although more may have been involved, according to video evidence.
Other video showed people screaming, crawling on their hands and knees out of the music venue or fleeing down stairwells.
Russian media reports said that riot police units were sent to the area as people were being evacuated and Speznaz units of the Russian national guard began storming the building later on Friday evening. Some of the attackers may have escaped, the Russian news agency Baza reported.
The shooting at the concert hall was reminiscent of some of Europe’s worst terrorist incidents such as the attack on the Bataclan in Paris in November 2015. Russians are likely to recall the Nord Ost terrorist attack in Moscow in 2002, when gunmen took hostages at a theatre in one of the worst incidents in the country’s history.
The Russian news agency 112, which specialises in crime reporting, put the death toll as high as 40 killed and more than 100 injured. It was unclear if police had managed to neutralise the attackers by Friday evening, as emergency workers said they had evacuated 100 people who had been sheltering in the building’s basement.
The British embassy in Moscow condemned the attacks.
“We condemn the terrorist attack at the Moscow region’s Crocus City Hall. It’s a horrible tragedy. We offer sincere condolences to the relatives and loved ones of those hurt and killed in today’s events,” the British embassy said in a statement on its Telegram channel.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said the “images of the attack were just horrible and just hard to watch”. The White House had no indication that Ukraine was involved in the attack, Kirby added. Russia is fighting a major war in Ukraine.
An eyewitness told the Mash Telegram channel that there were “at least five” attackers and that they were “bearded”.
“They act like trained fighters,” the account read. “At the moment of entering the building, the guards and people standing at the door were killed. Then they blocked the main entrance.”
“The terrorists are armed with [Kalashnikov] assault rifles,” the person said. “Some carried vests with various ammunition. At least two of the attackers are carrying backpacks, possibly with molotov cocktails.”
A top Ukrainian official said the country had no involvement in the attack.
“Ukraine certainly has nothing to do with the shooting/explosions in the Crocus City Hall,” said Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the Ukrainian presidential administration. “It makes no sense whatsoever.”
“Ukraine has never resorted to the use of terrorist methods,” he wrote on X.
Dmitry Medvedev, the ex-president of Russia and now deputy chairman of its security council, wrote that “if it is established that they are terrorists of the Kyiv regime, it’s impossible to treat them and those who inspired them differently. They all should be found and relentlessly destroyed as terrorists. Including officials of the state that committed such an evil thing. Death for death.”
There was no evidence that Ukraine had any involvement in the attacks.
The attack took place at a sold-out concert by the Russian rock band Piknik. Crocus City Hall is one of the largest and most popular music venues in the Moscow oblast.
The warnings from the western embassies came shortly after Russia said it had foiled a planned shooting by an Afghan group linked to Islamic State.
Russian authorities had recently carried out a series of raids against armed Islamist militants in the region of Ingushetia, leading to pitched firefights between police and the fighters. It was unclear if this was the attack referred to in the warning.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin later called the March warnings from western embassies a “provocation”. “All this resembles outright blackmail and the intention to intimidate and destabilize our society,” he said earlier this month.
Russia has not faced a large terrorist attack on its own territory since 2017, when 14 people were killed in a blast on the Saint Petersburg metro. Suicide bombers killed 34 people in Volgograd in 2013 shortly before the Sochi Olympics. And in 2011, suicide bombers killed 30 people at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport.
Top picture Russian President Putin pictured with top brass. The terrorist attack took place a few days after he was elected for another six years.
If Russia establishes that it was the US or the UK were in part involved in this brutal attack then I think we can antidipate a strike back.
The US most certainly knew about the possibility of an impending attack. They and the UK have troops on the ground in Ukraine and have done for some considerable time.
God help us all
I heard a swift comment from a Russian newspaper editor to BBC Moscow correspondent Steve Rosenberg the other evening. He was asking her why Putin has so much support. She told him it was because Russians like Putin and that they enjoy their own way of life. They wished the West would stop interfering in their affairs, which were none of their business – “and we don’t like you,” the woman added.