National mourning after the terrorist attack in Russia that left 133 dead and over 150 injured

Sunday is a day of mourning in Russia and the flags were lowered to half-mast, after the massacre committed on Friday evening in a concert hall in Moscow, the bloodiest attack on European territory claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group.

“The whole country is in mourning with those who lost their loved ones in this inhumane tragedy,” the Russian public television station Rossia 24 broadcast on Sunday morning, which broadcast images of a huge digital panel installed on the walls of the attacked concert hall: a candle on a black background and the message “Crocus City Hall. 22.03.2024. We are in mourning…”

Museums and theaters in Moscow have announced that they will close their doors this weekend, following the attack. Cinemas in Moscow have also announced that they will be closed on Saturday and Sunday, offering “condolences” to the families of the victims.

People laid flowers at the concert hall where the terrorist attack took place.

The search among the ruins of the building ravaged by flames and whose roof partially collapsed continues and could last several days, and the death toll could increase. Gunmen dressed in camouflage uniforms stormed the Crocus City Hall concert hall on Friday night, before opening fire with automatic weapons on the crowd and starting a fire using a flammable liquid, killing at least 133 people.

Denouncing a “barbaric terrorist act”, President Vladimir Putin threatened, in a televised speech on Saturday, that the culprits will all be punished. The Russian leader announced that “the four perpetrators” of the attack were arrested “while heading to Ukraine”, without mentioning the claim of the Islamic State jihadist group.

The Kremlin had previously announced “the arrest of 11 people, including four terrorists involved in the attack”. These four “foreign citizens” were captured in the Bryansk region, on the border with Ukraine and Belarus, according to the Russian authorities. However, the Islamic State, that claimed the attack, had said that those four attackers had returned to their base.

Ukraine has denied it had anything to do with the terror attack, also denouncing Putin’s claims that attackers were looking for a way out through Ukraine.

This attack, which took place at a concert hall in Krasnogorsk, northwest of the Russian capital, is the worst terrorist attack in Russia in the last twenty years and the bloodiest claimed by IS in Europe. The toll was set Sunday morning at 133 dead and 152 injured, according to the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations.

Islamic State, which Moscow is fighting in Syria and which is also active in the Russian Caucasus, has already carried out attacks in Russia since the late 2010s, but the group has never claimed responsibility for an attack of this magnitude. On one of its Telegram accounts, the Islamic State said late on Friday that the attack was carried out by four of its members and was part of the “context (…) of the ongoing war” between the group and “countries fighting against Islam”.

The FSB announced that the suspects had “appropriate contacts on the Ukrainian side” and intended to flee to Ukraine, without providing further details on the nature of these links or evidence of their existence. “Ukraine has not the slightest connection with the incident,” said Ukrainian presidential adviser Mihailo Podoliak, rejecting the “absurd” accusations.

Russia has so far made no mention of a jihadist link to Friday’s massacre, despite the Islamic State group claiming responsibility for the attack.

Terrorists entered through the window of a neighboring exhibition center

The owner of “Crocus City Hall”, Araz Agalarov, commented for the first time on the terrorist attack that took place in the premises of the performance hall on the outskirts of Moscow, TV8 reports.

Araz Agalarov, together with his son, singer and businessman Emin, and branch manager Roman Grachev, arrived at the scene of the incident and gave previously unknown details about Friday’s attack.

“There was a terrible tragedy, and it has already been said that nothing like it has happened in the last 20 years,” Agalarov told RBK television.

According to him, the terrorists entered the hall not through the door, but through the window of a neighboring exhibition center. “With automatic weapons. They started shooting at everything they saw. In all people, in guards. One guard was killed, the second was wounded. They weren’t even guards. We call them controllers,'” said Araz Agalarov.

At least four men dressed in camouflage are behind the attack.

Following the attack, the building was engulfed in a heavy fire and part of the roof collapsed. Some witnesses said that not all people managed to get out of the building.

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