The audience in a theater in a Moscow suburb was brutally shocked on Friday evening by the largest terrorist attack in the Russian capital in more than twenty years. The death toll now stands at 133 and on Saturday there were long lines of volunteers in front of hospitals to donate blood for the many injured people. Many residents are wondering how it could have come to this, despite warnings that have circulated in recent weeks about an impending attack. Five questions about the largest attack in Moscow since 2002, when more than a hundred people were killed – also in a theater.
1
How did the attack proceed?
The attack started just before 8 p.m., just before the start of a concert by the Russian rock group Piknik in a hall at Crocus City Hall, a complex in the Krasnogorsk suburb. Four men in camouflage clothing entered the auditorium and shot around with automatic rifles. The orchestra, which was waiting behind the curtain, managed to escape through the stage, as did part of the audience. The attackers then set fire to the hall, possibly with Molotov cocktails.
Authorities say at least 133 people have been killed and 145 injured, 60 of them in critical condition. In addition to gunshot and burn wounds, concertgoers were trampled or suffocated by smoke in the complex's catacombs. Ten bodies are said to have been recovered from a toilet. According to those present, the police and emergency services arrived on the scene very late.
2
Was the attack unexpected or were there indications beforehand?
The United States had warned the Russians earlier this month that American intelligence services had picked up information that Islamic State Khorasan, the Afghan branch of IS, was plotting attacks. These could possibly take place within a few days. The US Embassy in Russia month for this purpose on March 7, American citizens to refrain from public gatherings, including concerts, for the next 48 hours.
President Putin angrily dismissed such warnings last Tuesday as provocations. “This looks like outright blackmail,” he said“with the intention to intimidate and destabilize our society.”
It was also known that IS, which lost its last stronghold in Syria in 2019, had become more active abroad again in recent months. In Iran, IS-K had already carried out a major attack in the south of the country in January this year, resulting in 84 deaths.
European intelligence services say they recently managed to foil several attacks. The Russian FSB itself, the successor to the KGB, also reported at the beginning of this month that it had killed a number of Islamic fundamentalists who allegedly wanted to attack a synagogue in Moscow.
3
How does President Putin react now?
Vladimir Putin, who only days ago claimed victory in the presidential election for the fifth time, linked the attack to Ukraine in a statement on Saturday afternoon. He stated that four suspects in the attack who were arrested were on their way to Ukraine, which would have provided them with an escape route. According to Putin, a total of eleven arrests had been made. He compared the terrorists to Nazis. “Just as the Nazis once carried out massacres in the occupied territories, they decided to stage a show execution, a bloody intimidation.” Putin called for unity of citizens and “our comrades at the front”: “No one will be able to sow the poisonous seeds of discord, panic and discord in our multi-ethnic society.”
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An IS attack would be very unsuitable for the Kremlin. It does not want anti-Islamic sentiments now that Russia is positioning itself towards the Arab world as an ally of Islam. The army also recruits among Central Asian migrants: after service in Ukraine, they are offered Russian citizenship.
The actions of the Russian intelligence service FSB, the former KGB, also reflect the Kremlin's changed priorities. A decade ago, the FSB was strongly focused on preventing attacks by Islamic fundamentalists. In 2013, she said she had more than eighty occurrences, it appears a statement from the Russian newspaper in exile, Novaya Gazeta. By 2023, this had fallen to 4. However, in the same year, according to the FSB, more than thirty Ukrainian attacks were thwarted.
4
Have the perpetrators been caught and what is known about them?
A total of eleven people have been arrested so far on suspicion of involvement in the attack. thus the director of the secret service FSB. This also includes the four alleged perpetrators. Around half past eight on Saturday morning, Telegram channel Baza, which has good sources in the Russian security services, reported that several men had been arrested near the village of Tjoply in the Bryansk region, not far from the Ukrainian border. After a short firefight, their car, a white Renault, reportedly rolled over. Two men were said to have been arrested on the spot, four others were said to have fled into the woods. Weapons and ammunition were allegedly found in the car, as well as four passports of citizens of the Central Asian state of Tajikistan.
That would contradict the Kremlin's claim that the perpetrators “had relevant contacts in Ukraine.” However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Tajikistan speaks of 'fake news': two of the citizens mentioned by Baza, Nasridinov Makhmadrasul and Ismonov Rivozhidin, are said to have returned to Tajikistan on November 26 and are now there.
Ukrainian President Zelensky denies any involvement in the attack, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine calls the Russian allegations a “planned provocation” to fuel “anti-Ukrainian hysteria” and justify a new mobilization. The ministry referred to the bombings of apartment buildings during Putin's first election campaign in 1999, which authorities say were committed by Chechen terrorists, but many believe in reality by the FSB itself: “There are no red lines for Putin's dictatorship. It is prepared to kill its own citizens for political purposes.”
5
Could Islamic State indeed have been behind the attack?
Shortly after the attack, IS-K itself claimed responsibility for the attack via a message on Telegram. The organization added that the perpetrators had escaped. Eyewitnesses present at Crocus City Hall also reported that the perpetrators wore beards, which could indicate that they were indeed Islamic fundamentalists.
The arrest of the car with Tajiks near Bryansk could also indicate this. One of the detainees, who allegedly came from Turkey on February 4, admitted during his interrogation, again in a video distributed via Telegram, that he had received an offer to kill people for money. The name of his client he said he didn't know. It would have been “an employee of a preacher.”
Russian authorities have so far not confirmed that the attack was the work of IS-K, although the US has strongly suggested this. An American expert, anti-terrorism analyst Colin P. Clarke, pointed out in The New York Times that IS-K had often expressed fierce criticism of President Putin's Russia in the last few years. “IS-K accuses the Kremlin of having the blood of Muslims on its hands, citing Moscow's interventions in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Syria.”
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