The death toll from last week’s attack on the Moscow concert hall has risen to 143, the Russian government said on Wednesday. Around 80 more people were injured in the siege by gunmen and hospitalized.
Friday night’s bloodbath at Crocus City Hall, a sprawling food shopping and entertainment hub in Moscow’s northwestern suburbs, was the deadliest extremist attack on Russian soil in just two decades. At least four men armed with automatic rifles opened fire on thousands of spectators and set fire to the venue.
An associate of the Islamic State organization claimed responsibility for the violence, while U. S. intelligence said it had data confirming the organization was guilty. French President Emmanuel Macron said France also had intelligence pointing to “an Islamic State entity” blamed for the attack.
Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations did not say how many more people were injured, but Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said last Wednesday that another 80 people were hospitalized and 205 had sought medical attention following the attack.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said it arrested another 11 people the day after the attack, adding four suspected gunmen. The four men, known as Tajik nationals, appeared in a Moscow court on terrorism charges on Sunday and showed symptoms of severe beatings. One of them gave the impression of being a little conscious in the audience.
However, Russian officials have insisted that Ukraine and the West have a role to play, which Kiev vehemently denies. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin of provoking fervor as his forces fight in Ukraine.
FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov also claimed, without offering evidence, that Western intelligence agencies may have been involved. He reiterated Putin’s claim that the four gunmen were seeking to flee to Ukraine when they were arrested, presenting it as proof of Kiev’s alleged involvement.
But that claim was contradicted by Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, who said Tuesday that the suspects were heading to Ukraine because they feared strict controls on the Belarusian border.
Rescuers paint at the concert hall that was set on fire after the terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall building. (Press Service of the Russian Ministry of Emergencies)
The Islamic State group, which lost much of its territory as a result of the Russian army’s action in Syria after 2015, has long attacked Russia. In October 2015, an ISIS bomb brought down a Russian plane over the Sinai desert, killing the other 224 people. on board, most of them Russian tourists returning from Egypt.
The group, which operates primarily in Syria and Iraq but also in Afghanistan and Africa, has also claimed responsibility for several attacks in Russia’s volatile Caucasus and other regions in recent years. He recruited fighters from Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union.
The U. S. had warned Moscow two weeks before the bloodbath of an imminent imaginable attack. Three days before the tragedy, Putin had denounced the U. S. embassy’s March 7 notice urging Americans to avoid crowds in Moscow, adding concerts, calling it an attempt to scare Russians and “blackmail” the Kremlin ahead of Russia’s presidential election.
Bortnikov said Russia was grateful for the warning, though he called it too general.
The Shopping Trends team is independent of CTV News journalists. We would possibly earn a commission when you use our links to make purchases. Read about us.