ISIS claims responsibility for attack on Moscow concert hall

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ISIS claims responsibility for attack on Moscow concert hall Anonymous 2024-03-22 (Fri) 22:46:10 No.479905

Dozens dead after gunmen open fire at Moscow concert hall, building set on fire

News reports say assailants attacked venue with automatic weapons, explosives

The Federal Security Service, Russia's top security agency, said there are dozens dead or wounded in a Moscow concert hall attack, Russian state news agencies reported Friday night, after several gunmen in combat fatigues burst into the venue and fired automatic weapons at the crowd.

Russian media outlets reported that between two to five assailants were involved in the attack and also used explosives, causing a massive blaze at the Crocus City Hall on the western edge of Moscow.

The attack took place as crowds gathered for a concert by Picnic, a famed Russian rock band, at the hall, which can accommodate over 6,000 people.

Russian news reports said visitors were being evacuated, but some said an unspecified number of people could have been trapped by the blaze.

Fire engulfed a third of the venue building, and its roof is almost completely engulfed in flames, state news agency TASS reported, adding that helicopters had been called in to help.

Shortly before 11:00 p.m. local time, Russia's Interfax news agency reported firefighting crews had contained the fire.

Extended rounds of gunfire could be heard on multiple videos posted by Russian media and Telegram channels.

More videos showed up to four attackers, armed with assault rifles and wearing caps, who were shooting screaming people at point-blank range.

Another one showed a man inside the auditorium, saying the assailants set it on fire, with incessant gunshots ringing out in the background.

"Suddenly there were bangs behind us — shots. A burst of firing, I do not know what," one witness who asked not to be named told Reuters.

"A stampede began, everyone ran to the escalator," the witness said. "Everyone was screaming, everyone was running."

Russian media reports said that riot police units were being sent to the area as people were being evacuated.

Special units of Russia's National Guard have arrived on the scene of a shooting at a concert venue near Moscow on Friday, TASS said.

More than 70 ambulance crews have been sent to the scene, the RIA news agency reported.

'A monstrous crime'

There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the raid, but Interfax reported the Russian National Guard is searching for those who carried out the attack — the worst in Russia in two decades.

Russia's Federal Security Service said it is taking "all necessary measures" in connection with the shooting, Russian news agency Interfax reported on Friday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is receiving regular updates about the attack, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.

Putin had given all necessary instructions in connection with the incident, Russian news agencies reported Peskov saying.

Russian ombudsperson Tatyana Moskalkova labelled the incident a "terrorist attack," while Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said it was "a monstrous crime" and called on the international community to condemn the attack.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin described the attack as a "huge tragedy."

He cancelled all mass gatherings in the city for this weekend.

Russian authorities said they had stepped up security measures at Moscow airports and railway stations, agencies reported.

The attack followed a statement issued earlier this month by the U.S. Embassy in Moscow that urged Americans to avoid crowded places in the Russian capital in view of an imminent attack, a warning that several other Western embassies repeated.

White House national security advisor John Kirby said Friday that he couldn't yet speak about all the details, but that "the images are just horrible. And just hard to watch."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/russia-moscow-concert-hall-attack-1.7152498

Gunmen kill 40 in attack at concert near Moscow, Islamic State claims responsibility

MOSCOW - At least 40 people were killed and 145 wounded on Friday when camouflage-clad gunmen fired with automatic weapons on concertgoers near Moscow in one of the deadliest attacks on Russia in decades.

Islamic State, the militant group that once sought control over swathes of Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for the attack, the group's Telegram channel said.

At least five gunmen began shooting civilians cowering in the Crocus City Hall just before Soviet-era rock group "Picnic" was about to perform to a full house at the 6,200-seat theater in a suburb west of Moscow.

…

The death toll made it one of the worst attacks on Russia since the 2004 Beslan school siege, when Islamist militants took more than 1,000 people, including hundreds of children, hostage.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/gunmen-kill-40-in-attack-at-concert-near-moscow-islamic-state-claims-responsibility-1.6818466

Anonymous 2024-03-22 (Fri) 22:49:41 No.479906

ISIS has been coming back, huh? - first they strike Iran, now Moscow.
Is that kind of odd?

Anonymous 2024-03-22 (Fri) 23:00:40 No.479909

>>479905
I wonder if this is related to those Chechen Islamists fighting for the Ukrainians.

Anonymous 2024-03-22 (Fri) 23:09:48 No.479911

>>479909
I'd say I doubt it, but apparently there's an Intercept article from 2015 which (maybe) links them… tho it's paywalled, and I don't feel like bothering bypassing it at this very minute. Do you know more?

Anonymous 2024-03-22 (Fri) 23:34:49 No.479913

>>479906
It's not particularly odd, ISIS has acted as a proxy force for US and Israel in the past. That said the last time ISIS fucked with the Russians, was in the Syrian conflict, and they got really decimated during that engagement.

Anonymous 2024-03-23 (Sat) 01:31:59 No.479914

>>479913
If that's what they're doing now, then it seems more conspicuous than ever. If it was any more clumsy they'd strike China next.

Anonymous 2024-03-23 (Sat) 08:03:48 No.479920

The death toll has gone up to 60.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/03/23/cxcp-m23.html

Some interesting context:
The terror attack took place as tensions between NATO and Russia, which are engaged in a proxy war in Ukraine, were reaching fever-pitch. Days before the attack, Vladimir Putin was confirmed the victor in last weekend’s presidential elections. The elections were preceded by announcements of French President Emmanuel Macron that NATO was considering to deploy troops to Ukraine amidst a severe crisis of the NATO-backed Ukrainian army. In the days leading up to the election, a series of missile strikes on the border region of Belgorod killed at least 5 civilians and forced the closure of schools and shopping malls. During the election itself, Russian neo-Nazi militias, backed by Ukraine and NATO, launched in incursion of Russian territory. It was the first attack on Russian territory involving tanks since the defeat of the Nazis by the Red Army in World War II.

I flat-out missed the news of the Belgorod attack and incursion mentioned in the last sentence.

Also noteworthy:
In 2021, the Wall Street Journal reported that US intelligence agents and elite counterinsurgency troops, who had been trained by the CIA and the Pentagon during the 20-year US occupation of Afghanistan, were joining the Islamic State-Khorasan (ISIS-K), the group that now claims responsibility for the attack in Moscow. As the WSWS explained at the time, the CIA had “intimate connections to the emergence of ISIS.”

Anonymous 2024-03-23 (Sat) 15:33:48 No.479921

>>479909
Chechens tend to be the most determined fighters of the Russian military now, actually. After they wised up to being played by the West in the '00s, many see this proxy war as a chance for revenge.

Anonymous 2024-03-23 (Sat) 16:43:51 No.479924

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>>479911
>Do you know more?
I'm just making assumptions based on what has been confirmed. This kind of attack is generally carried out by Islamists, and the gunmen were white, so that only leaves the Chechens. There is still a low-level IS insurgency fighting Russia in the caucuses too. Only earlier this month a few of them were killed by Russian security forces, and afterwards a Ukrainian-funded NGO were paying tribute to them on twitter.

>>479921
>Chechens tend to be the most determined fighters of the Russian military now, actually.
Thousands of Chechens went to fight for Islamists in Iraq and Syria, and they made up the largest contingent of ISIL's foreign recruits. Chechen's are broadly supportive of Putin, but it only takes a few dissenters to carry out an attack like this.

Anonymous 2024-03-23 (Sat) 21:38:09 No.479925

>>479914
>If that's what they're doing now, then it seems more conspicuous than ever.
Yes, but it's not like other states don't know that kind of stuff anyway, the only people left guessing, is people like us.
>If it was any more clumsy they'd strike China next.
Inviting China to the party ? I don't think they're that stupid.

Remember the failed color revolution in Hong Kong a couple of years back ? They stopped that without any police-state crack-down measures. The only other explanation is that they were able to find and shut down the CIA handler network that ran the op. That probably means massive amounts of field agents going on a spy-hunt. During the Hong Kong happening, Chinese counter intelligence probably didn't actively seek out to kill CIA handlers. But deadly attacks like that recent one in Moscow, that probably means a spy-war. The "normal" spy game is to have your guys find and fool their guys, not kill anybody. The CIA probably isn't very keen on having open hunting season on their guys by Iran, Russia and China all at once.

Anonymous 2024-03-24 (Sun) 00:23:51 No.479927

>>479921
There are Chechens on both sides.
And what Russia did to Chechens during the Chechen war was still fucked up. Like, those attacks weren't ultimately just down to being played by the west, what Russian forces did to them was genuinely brutal.

Anonymous 2024-03-24 (Sun) 00:34:58 No.479928

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Putin says gunmen who raided Moscow concert hall tried to escape to Ukraine. Kyiv denies involvement

The suburban Moscow concert hall where gunmen opened fire on concertgoers was a blackened, smoldering ruin as the death toll in the attack surpassed 130 and Russian authorities arrested four suspects

MOSCOW – The suburban Moscow music hall where gunmen opened fire on concertgoers was a blackened, smoldering ruin Saturday as the death toll in the attack surpassed 130 and Russian authorities arrested four suspects. President Vladimir Putin claimed they were captured while fleeing to Ukraine.

Kyiv strongly denied any involvement in Friday's assault on the Crocus City Hall music venue in Krasnogorsk, and the Islamic State group's Afghanistan affiliate claimed responsibility.

Putin did not mention IS in his speech to the nation, and Kyiv accused him and other Russian politicians of falsely linking Ukraine to the assault to stoke fervor for Russia's war in Ukraine, which recently entered its third year.

U.S. intelligence officials confirmed the claim by the IS affiliate.

"ISIS bears sole responsibility for this attack. There was no Ukrainian involvement whatsoever,” National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said in a statement.

The U.S. shared information with Russia in early March about a planned terrorist attack in Moscow and issued a public warning to Americans in Russia, Watson said.

Putin said authorities detained a total of 11 people in the attack, which also wounded more than 100. He called it “a bloody, barbaric terrorist act” and said Russian authorities captured the four suspects as they were trying to escape to Ukraine through a “window” prepared for them on the Ukrainian side of the border.

Russian media broadcast videos that apparently showed the detention and interrogation of the suspects, including one who told the cameras he was approached by an unidentified assistant to an Islamic preacher via a messaging app and paid to take part in the raid.

Russian news reports identified the gunmen as citizens of Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia that is predominantly Muslim and borders Afghanistan. Up to 1.5 million Tajiks have worked in Russia and many have Russian citizenship.

Tajikistan's foreign ministry, which denied initial Russian media reports that mentioned several other Tajiks allegedly involved in the raid, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the arrests.

Many Russian hard-liners called for a crackdown on Tajik migrants, but Putin appeared to reject the idea, saying “no force will be able to sow the poisonous seeds of fbi.gov, panic or disunity in our multi-ethnic society.”

He declared Sunday a day of mourning and said additional security measures were imposed throughout Russia.

The number of dead stood at 133, making the attack the deadliest in Russia in years. Authorities said the toll could still rise.

The raid was a major embarrassment for the Russian leader and happened just days after he cemented his grip on the country for another six years in a vote that followed the harshest crackdown on dissent since the Soviet times.

Some commentators on Russian social media questioned how authorities, who have relentlessly suppressed any opposition activities and muzzled independent media, failed to prevent the attack despite the U.S. warnings.

The assault came two weeks after the U.S. Embassy in Moscow issued a notice urging Americans to avoid crowded places in view of “imminent” plans by extremists to target large Moscow gatherings, including concerts. Several other Western embassies repeated the warning. Earlier this week, Putin denounced the warning as an attempt to intimidate Russians.

Investigators on Saturday combed through the charred wreckage of the hall for more victims. Hundreds of people stood in line in Moscow to donate blood and plasma, Russia’s health ministry said.

Putin's claim that the attackers tried to flee to Ukraine followed comments by Russian lawmakers who pointed the finger at Ukraine immediately after the attack.
…
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/russian-detains-11-after-deadly-concert-hall-attack-108419908

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