Gunmen kill 60 people in a concert hall outside Moscow, state media report
Several camouflage-clad gunmen opened fire at a popular concert venue on the outskirts of Moscow on Friday evening, killing around 60 people and wounding more than 100, the FSB, Russia’s top security agency, said. said. That death toll would make it the deadliest attack in the capital region in more than a decade.
As gunshots rang through the building housing the concert hall, one of the largest and most popular music venues in the Moscow area, a fire broke out on the upper floors of the building and intensified after an explosion, the RIA news agency reported Novosti.
Islamic State claimed responsibility through an affiliated news agency. US security officials, including a senior counterterrorism official, said they believed the attack was carried out by the US Secret Service Islamic State in Khorasan, a branch of the terrorist group active in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
Multiple videos posted on social media and verified by The New York Times show several people entering the Crocus City Hall, a sprawling shopping and entertainment complex in the Krasnogorsk suburb northwest of Moscow, and firing guns. Other videos show people running past bloodied victims lying on the ground or screaming at the sound of gunfire, while photos show bodies outside the building.
A woman who gave her name only as Marina said in a text message that she was queuing outside in the cold for a concert around 8 p.m. when people without overcoats ran out of the building saying they heard shots.
“As soon as I heard automatic gunshots, I started running too,” she said.
State news agency TASS reported that emergency services had sent helicopters to try to rescue people from the roof of the building, where flames and smoke could be seen billowing into the night sky. The roof at the concert stage collapsed around 10 p.m. local time, RIA Novosti reported.
Hours after the chaos began, the Russian National Guard said the officers were still searching for the attackers and evacuating people from the complex. State media agencies reported that there had been up to five perpetrators.
At least 115 people have been hospitalized as a result of the Moscow concert hall attack, including five children, according to Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko. Among the injured are 60 adult patients who are in serious condition, the minister said. Another 30 people were treated and released.
The Russian Investigative Committee, the country’s equivalent of the FBI, said it had opened a criminal case for a terrorist act and sent its investigators to the site. RIA Novosti said a special police unit was working in the building.
John F. Kirby, a spokesman for President Biden’s National Security Council, told reporters that the White House had “no indication at this time that Ukraine or Ukrainians were involved.” Mykhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to the Ukrainian presidential office, said in a video statement that “Ukraine had absolutely nothing to do” with the attack.
On March 7, the US embassy in Moscow issued a decision security alarm that warned that its staff was “monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, including concerts.” The statement, which said nothing about the extremists’ ties, warned Americans that an attack could occur in the next 48 hours.
Pro-Kremlin voices seized on the US embassy’s warning to portray America as trying to scare the Russians. On March 19, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia called the statement “clear blackmail” with “the intention to intimidate and destabilize our society.”
Friday’s attack was related to the March 7 warning, according to U.S. officials briefed on the matter. They added that the United States privately warned Russia at the time about intelligence about Islamic State’s activities.
Statements of condolence and outrage came from around the world, including the governments of the United States and other countries that disagree with Russia. Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, who died in a Russian prison last month, said on social media: “All those involved in this crime must be found and brought to justice.”
The attack came on a day when 165 missiles and drones attacked Ukraine, drawing US Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink. said was “the largest attack on the Ukrainian energy network since the start of the Russian war.”
The shooting took place minutes before a sold-out performance by veteran rock band Piknik was set to begin. According to the website, the concert hall has 6,200 seats.
“At least three people in camouflage stormed into the ground floor of the Crocus town hall and opened fire with automatic weapons” and threw firebombs, a RIA Novosti correspondent reported from the scene. “There are definitely injured people.”
In videos shot inside the concert hall, the audience can be heard shouting and crouching as repeated gunshots ring out outside the venue.
Russia’s emergency service said it had sent 130 vehicles and three helicopters to the scene to drop water on the fire that destroyed the upper floors. By late evening the fire appeared to have died down considerably.
Shootings are rare in Russia, where the state strictly regulates the ownership of firearms. One of the deadliest occurred in 2022, when a gunman killed 18 people and injured 23 others at a school in the city of Izhevsk.
If Friday’s figures of 60 dead and more than 100 injured are correct, the toll would be comparable to the 2011 suicide bombing at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport, which killed 37 people, and two coordinated suicide bombings in Moscow metro stations in 2010. 38 killed.
In 2004, 172 people were killed in a siege of a theater in Moscow by Chechen separatists. Police pumped a tranquilizer gas into the theater to incapacitate the attackers, but the gas killed 132 hostages.
The complex where Friday’s attack took place was developed by Azerbaijani-born billionaire Aras Agalarov, whose son, Emin, is a famous pop star. Former President Donald Trump held the 2013 Miss Universe pageant at the same complex and world-famous artists such as Eric Clapton, Dua Lipa and Sia have also performed there.
Alina Lobzina, Julian E Barnes And Neil MacFarquhar reporting contributed.