Moscow concert attack: Concert hall massacre suspects charged with terrorism as death toll rises and Isis takes responsibility

Russia is casting doubt on Isis’s claim of responsibility for the attack on a Moscow concert hall that killed 137 people on Friday night.

The militant group has released what it says is footage of the attack and says it carried it out to target “Christians” gathered at Crocus City Hall, with the US saying it has intelligence to confirm Isis was responsible.

But Vladimir Putin has not publicly mentioned Isis in statements vowing revenge for the attack, and has instead claimed the gunmen tried to escape to Ukraine.

Putin said some people on “the Ukrainian side” had been prepared to spirit the gunmen across the border. Russia has a vested interest in blaming Ukraine for the attack, while Kyiv has strongly denied having any role in it.

In an article for the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper on Monday, Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called into question US assertions that Isis carried out the attack.

“Attention – a question to the White House: Are you sure it’s Isis? Might you think again about that?” Zakharova said.

Zakharova said the United States was using Isis as a “bogeyman” to cover its “wards” in Kyiv and reminded readers that Washington supported the “mujahideen” fighters who fought Soviet forces in the 1980s.

Jeremy Hunt says the UK needs to remain “vigilant” following a terrorist attack on a Russian concert hall.

Islamic State have claimed responsibility for the attack, and the chancellor says other nations should “absolutely” be worried if it’s confirmed to be true, despite the UK’s “impressive” intelligence services.

“They are utterly indiscriminate”, Hunt said of Islamic State’s capabilities.

“We have to make sure that we’re on our guard.”

133 people have been confirmed dead following the shooting at Crocus City Hall, with many others injured.

As the clamour and noise grew louder for the artists to take to the stage at Crocus City Hall, a sprawling shopping mall and music venue, a devastating act of violence was carried out that left more than 130 people dead and dozens more injured. It is the deadliest attack in Russia since the 2004 Beslan school siege, when terrorists killed 334 people.

At around 7.40pm a white Renault car pulled up outside the 6,200-capacity concert hall. Men dressed in military fatigues exited the vehicle, burst into the foyer and started shooting. Harrowing videos posted on Russian social media showed the attackers calmly walking through the venue and shooting concert-goers at point-blank range as they attempted to flee or tried to find a place to hide.

ISIS-K, a regional division of ISIS, has claimed responsibility for the Moscow concert hall attack that left at least 133 people dead.

Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), named after a region that included parts of Iran, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, have garnered a reputation for brutality – including claiming responsibility for a suicide bombing at Russia’s Kabul embassy in 2022.

Putin has become central to the group’s propaganda in recent years, and appears to have firmly kept Russia as one of its main targets.

Despite ISIS claiming responsibility for the attack, the Kremlin still found a way to point the finger at Ukraine.

“Instead of taking care of his Russian citizens and addressing them, this duffer Putin remained silent for a day, thinking about how to link this to Ukraine”, he told followers.

“Those hundreds of thousands of Russians who are now killing on Ukrainian soil would certainly be enough to deter any terrorists.”

The Russian Football Union said Saturday that its team’s friendly against Paraguay scheduled for Moscow on Monday has been put off indefinitely due to the terrorist attack near the capital.

At least 133 people were killed after gunmen opened fire with automatic weapons in a suburban concert hall near Moscow on Friday. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility.

Officials said the match originally scheduled for Moscow’s VTB Arena would be played at a later date.

The US-backed force that defeated the Islamic State group in Syria five years ago warned Saturday that the extremists still pose grave dangers throughout the world and called on the international community to find solutions for thousands of fighters still held in its jails.

The statement by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces to mark the fifth anniversary since IS lost the last sliver of its self-declared caliphate came hours after the group claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack in Moscow that left 133 people dead.

On March 23, 2019, SDF fighters captured the eastern Syrian village of Baghouz marking the end of the extremist group’s caliphate that was carved out of large parts of Syria and Iraq. During its rule, IS brutalized millions of people and attracted thousands of men and women from around the world to join it ranks.

The US embassy on 7 March repeatedly urged all American citizens to leave Russia immediately, giving no further details about the nature of the threat, but said people should avoid concerts and crowds and be aware of their surroundings.

Rituparna Chatterjee reports:

Russia‘s Foreign Ministry says it issued the necessary documents for a Spanish journalist to stay in the country although the reporter claims he was forced to leave because his visa was not renewed.

Xavier Colas of the newspaper El Mundo is the latest foreign journalist to have left Russia after visas were not continued. The cases come amid a crackdown on media that has intensified since Russia sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

Colas said he was forced to leave Russia on Wednesday, a day after authorities refused to renew the visa.

Moscow’s Basmanny district court has charged four suspects with acts of terrorism in connection with the attack, naming them as Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, Saidakrami Rachabalizoda, Shamsidin Fariduni, and Muhammadsobir Fayzov, according to Moscow courts’ official Telegram channel.

It said the men, identified by Russian media as all being citizens of the ex-Soviet republic of Tajikistan living in Russia, would be remanded in pre-trial custody until May 22. Three of the four had pleaded guilty to all charges, it said.

After unverified and brutal videos of the suspects’ interrogations circulated on social media, courtroom images published by Russian media showed one suspect was brought in on a wheelchair apparently missing an eye, another had a bandage where his right ear should be, another had a black eye and a ripped plastic bag around his neck, and a fourth suspect with a swollen face seemed disoriented and struggling to keep his eyes open.