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Russian National Guard soldiers near Crocus City Hall

Photo: Vitaly Smolnikov/dpa

Around 8:30 p.m. on Friday evening, panic broke out in the popular Crocus City Hall event center near Moscow. Shortly before the concert by the Russian band Piknik, shots were suddenly heard, then the sounds of explosions. A fire breaks out.

»They shoot. They shoot machine guns. "Some people are shooting," a man's excited voice can be heard in a shaky video circulating on social networks. The shots don't stop, they echo loudly in the large hall.

Russian authorities later spoke of a terrorist attack with more than 90 dead and dozens injured (read the minutes of the events here).

A few hours after the first shots, the terrorist militia “Islamic State” distributed a letter of responsibility. Kiev representatives rejected suspicions of Ukrainian involvement. According to their own statements, the USA warned Russian authorities a few weeks ago of a planned terrorist attack on "large gatherings, including concerts" in Moscow and, in an initial reaction, warned not to establish any connection with Ukraine.

No right to “grant absolution in advance”

This has now been criticized by the Russian Foreign Ministry. The fact that the USA is exonerating Ukraine as the possible mastermind of the attack on the Moscow concert hall while the tragedy is still ongoing raises questions, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Russian television on Friday evening.

"If the USA or another country has reliable facts, they should provide them to the Russian side," said the spokeswoman. If there were no such facts, neither the White House nor anyone else would have the right to grant absolution in advance.

President Vladimir Putin sent well-wishes to the victims through Deputy Prime Minister Tatjana Golikova and thanked the doctors. He initially did not comment further on the attack. Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping sent his condolences to his Russian counterpart. Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on X (formerly Twitter): “We condemn the terrible terrorist attack on innocent concertgoers in Moscow. Our thoughts are with the families of the victims and all those injured.”

Terror expert Peter Neumann from King's College in London believes IS's letter of responsibility is genuine. Even before the Russian Foreign Ministry's announcement, he had warned about fake news circulating on Russian Telegram channels. It says that the IS communication was fake. “Probably to spin the narrative that Ukraine was responsible for the attack,” said Neumann.

The letter of confession alone is not 100% reliable proof that IS is the mastermind, but in conjunction with the other evidence, he thinks it is "pretty certain that it has something to do with IS," said Neumann. He considers it very unlikely that IS would claim responsibility for the attack without actually being behind it.

Neumann refers in particular to the IS offshoot in Afghanistan, which calls itself “Islamic State-Khorasan” (IS-K). Many of their fighters were once Taliban and have been fighting them for years.

IS-K was founded in January 2015 as a regional branch of the terrorist militia “Islamic State” and is considered the most brutal militia in Afghanistan. She carried out numerous terrorist attacks on civilians and is also associated with plans to carry out Christmas attacks in Cologne, Vienna and Madrid. IS-K is recruiting very actively in ex-Soviet states in Central Asia and the Caucasus, said Neumann.

Investigators collect bags of cartridges

Early on Saturday morning, Russia's State Investigative Committee released a short video of the investigative work: a Kalashnikov-type submachine gun and belts full of magazines could be seen. The investigators collected bags of spent cartridges.

The victims of the attack had all been taken out of the building by Saturday morning, the Russian state news agency Tass reported. Around 100 people are said to have taken refuge from the terrorists in the basement of the concert hall.

After it was initially said that the fire in the event building was under control, open flames shot out of the roof again in the morning. The fire department was on duty.

Desperate relatives

Many relatives of concert-goers were still desperately waiting for a sign of life from their loved ones that night. "I'm completely in a panic, my whole body hurts," the AFP news agency quoted a man whose wife was at the concert and who was holding out in front of the burning hall as saying. His wife called him during the attack, but he couldn't hear her acoustically, says Semyon Khraptsov: "As soon as I knew what was going on, I came here. I do not know what to do."

Igor Bogodayev, 30, also waited outside the hall for signs of life from his wife. Her phone was turned off. "I'm scared," he said. "I don't know what to do." His friends tried to get information from hospitals to find out whether his wife was admitted there - but without success.

Increased security precautions

As a result of the attack, all theaters and museums in Moscow will remain closed at the weekend. The Russian news agency Tass reported that Red Square in Moscow had been cordoned off by security forces.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin had previously canceled all major events in the city for the weekend. Events in the Moscow area were also canceled. According to Russian television, increased security measures are now in place in many major Russian cities and at Moscow airports.

vet/dpa/AFP