Saturday, August 2, 2025
  • Who’sWho Africa AWARDS
  • About Time Africa Magazine
  • Contact Us
Time Africa Magazine
  • Home
  • Magazine
  • WHO’SWHO AWARDS
  • News
  • World News
    • US
    • UAE
    • Europe
    • UK
    • Israel-Hamas
    • Russia-Ukraine
  • Politics
  • Crime
  • Lifestyle
  • Sports
  • Column
  • Interviews
  • Special Report
No Result
View All Result
Time Africa Magazine
  • Home
  • Magazine
  • WHO’SWHO AWARDS
  • News
  • World News
    • US
    • UAE
    • Europe
    • UK
    • Israel-Hamas
    • Russia-Ukraine
  • Politics
  • Crime
  • Lifestyle
  • Sports
  • Column
  • Interviews
  • Special Report
No Result
View All Result
Time Africa Magazine
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • WHO’SWHO AWARDS
  • News
  • Magazine
  • World News

Home » World News » Moscow Concert Hall Attack: Death Toll Rises To 133

Moscow Concert Hall Attack: Death Toll Rises To 133

March 23, 2024
in World News
0
546
SHARES
4.5k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

MOSCOW (AP) — The suburban Moscow concert hall where gunmen opened fire on concertgoers was a blackened, smoldering ruin Saturday as the death toll in the attack surpassed 130 and Russian authorities arrested four suspects. President Vladimir Putin claimed they were captured while fleeing to Ukraine.

Kyiv strongly denied any involvement in Friday’s assault on the Crocus City Hall music venue in Krasnogorsk, and the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate claimed responsibility.

Putin did not mention IS in his speech to the nation, and Kyiv accused him and other Russian politicians of falsely linking Ukraine to the assault to stoke fervor for Russia’s war in Ukraine, which recently entered it’s third year .

U.S. intelligence officials confirmed the claim by the IS affiliate that it was responsible for the attack, a U.S. official told The Associated Press. U.S. intelligence agencies gathered information in recent weeks that the IS branch was planning an attack in Moscow, and U.S. officials privately shared the intelligence with Russian officials earlier this month, the U.S. official said. The official was briefed on the matter but was not authorized to publicly discuss the intelligence information and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

Putin said authorities detained a total of 11 people in the attack, which also wounded more than 100. He called it “a bloody, barbaric terrorist act” and said Russian authorities captured the four suspects as they were trying to escape to Ukraine through a “window” prepared for them on the Ukrainian side of the border.

ReadAlso

70 Christians beheaded in DR Congo by ISIS-aligned militants 

ISIS Threatens to Score Big at Paris Olympic Games

Russian media broadcast videos that apparently showed the detention and interrogation of the suspects, including one who told the cameras he was approached by an unidentified assistant to an Islamic preacher via a messaging app and paid to take part in the raid.

Russian news reports identified the gunmen as citizens of Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia that is predominantly Muslim and borders Afghanistan. Up to 1.5 million Tajiks have worked in Russia and many have Russian citizenship.

ADVERTISEMENT

Tajikistan’s foreign ministry, which denied initial Russian media reports that mentioned several other Tajiks allegedly involved in the raid, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the arrests.

Many Russian hard-liners called for a crackdown on Tajik migrants, but Putin appeared to reject the idea, saying “no force will be able to sow the poisonous seeds of discord, panic or disunity in our multi-ethnic society.”

He declared Sunday a day of mourning and said additional security measures were imposed throughout Russia.

The number of dead stood at 133, making the attack the deadliest in Russia in years. Authorities said the death toll could still rise.

The raid was a major embarrassment for the Russian leader and happened just days after he cemented his grip on the country for another six years in a vote that followed the harshest crackdown on dissent since the Soviet times.

Some commentators on Russian social media questioned how authorities, who have relentlessly suppressed any opposition activities and muzzled independent media, failed to prevent the attack despite the U.S. warnings.

The assault came two weeks after the U.S. Embassy in Moscow issued a notice urging Americans to avoid crowded places in view of “imminent” plans by extremists to target large Moscow gatherings, including concerts. Several other Western embassies repeated the warning. Earlier this week, Putin denounced the warning as an attempt to intimidate Russians.

Investigators on Saturday combed through the charred wreckage of the hall for more victims. Hundreds of people stood in line in Moscow to donate blood and plasma, Russia’s health ministry said.

Putin’s claim that the attackers tried to flee to Ukraine followed comments by Russian lawmakers who pointed the finger at Ukraine immediately after the attack.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy angrily rejected Moscow’s accusations as an attempt by Putin and his lieutenants to shift the blame to Ukraine while treating their own people as “expendables.”

“They are burning our cities — and they are trying to blame Ukraine,” he said in a statement on his messaging app channel. “They torture and rape our people — and they blame them. They drove hundreds of thousands of their terrorists here to fight us on our Ukrainian soil, and they don’t care what happens inside their own country.”

Images shared by Russian state media showed emergency vehicles still gathered outside the ruins of the concert hall, which could hold more than 6,000 people and hosted many big events, including the 2013 Miss Universe beauty pageant that featured Donald Trump.

On Friday, crowds were at the venue for a concert by the Russian rock band Picnic.

Videos posted online showed gunmen in the venue shooting civilians at point-blank range. Russian news reports cited authorities and witnesses as saying the attackers threw explosive devices that started the fire, which eventually consumed the building and caused its roof to collapse.

Dave Primov, who survived the attack, told the AP that the gunmen were “shooting directly into the crowd” in the front rows. He described the chaos in the hall as concertgoers raced to escape: “People began to panic, started to run and collided with each other. Some fell down and others trampled on them.”

After he and others crawled out of the hall into nearby utility rooms, he said he heard pops from small explosives and smelled burning as the attackers set the building ablaze. By the time they got out of the massive building 25 minutes later, it was engulfed in flames.

“Had it been just a little longer, we could simply get stuck there in the fire,” Primov said.

Messages of outrage, shock and support for the victims and their families have streamed in from around the world.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Saturday in a statement that the U.S. condemned the attack and noted that the Islamic State group is a “common terrorist enemy that must be defeated everywhere.”

IS, which lost much of its ground after Russia’s military action in Syria, has long targeted Russia. In a statement posted by the group’s Aamaq news agency, IS’s Afghanistan affiliate said it had attacked a large gathering of “Christians” in Krasnogorsk.

The group issued a new statement Saturday on Aamaq saying the attack was carried out by four men who used automatic rifles, a pistol, knives and firebombs. It said the assailants fired at the crowd and used knives to kill some concertgoers, casting the raid as part of IS’s ongoing war with countries that it says are fighting Islam.

In October 2015, a bomb planted by IS downed a Russian passenger plane over Sinai, killing all 224 people on board, most of them Russian vacation-goers returning from Egypt.

The group, which operates mainly in Syria and Iraq but also in Afghanistan and Africa, also has claimed several attacks in Russia’s volatile Caucasus and other regions in the past years. It recruited fighters from Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union.

The group’s Afghanistan affiliate is known variously as ISIS-K or IS-K, taking its name from Khorasan Province, a region that covered much of Afghanistan, Iran and Central Asia in the Middle Ages.

The affiliate has thousands of fighters who have repeatedly carried out attacks in Afghanistan since the country was seized in 2021 by the Taliban, a group with which they are at bitter odds.

ISIS-K was behind the August 2021 suicide bombing at Kabul airport that left 13 American troops and about 170 Afghans dead during the chaotic U.S. withdrawal. They also claimed responsibility for a bomb attack in Kerman, Iran, in January that killed 95 people at a memorial procession.

On March 7, just hours before the U.S. Embassy warned about imminent attacks, Russia’s top security agency said it had thwarted an attack on a synagogue in Moscow by an IS cell and killed several of its members in the Kaluga region near the Russian capital. A few days before that, Russian authorities said six alleged IS members were killed in a shootout in Ingushetia, in Russia’s Caucasus region.

___
Associated Press writers Michael Balsamo in Washington and Colleen Long in Wilmington, Delaware, contributed to this report.

Tags: ISIS.Islamic State group’s AfghanistanMoscow Concert Hall Attack
ADVERTISEMENT
Previous Post

Samuel Eto’o, A Legend Accused Of Match-fixing, Physical Threats, Inciting Violence

Next Post

Harvested Hearts, Organs of Slain Soldiers in Delta recovered – DHQ

You MayAlso Like

News

Ex-president found guilty of bribery and witness tampering

July 29, 2025
Israel-Hamas

Israel Airdrops Food Into Gaza As It Rebuffs Famine Claims

July 27, 2025
Middle-East

The Taliban are remaking Afghanistan in their image. It should have us all worried

July 25, 2025
Middle-East

Hundreds Dead From Hunger in Gaza, Including Dozens of Children

July 25, 2025
Thai soldiers are seen during a visit by Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, following armed clashes on a disputed border area between Cambodia and Thailand, at a makeshift camp in Surin province, 30 km (19 miles) from the Thai-Cambodia border, April 27, 2011. Thai and Cambodian troops clashed with heavy artillery for a sixth day on Wednesday near two disputed 12th-century Hindu temples, the Cambodian defense ministry said following a night of shelling that killed a Thai villager. To date, the fighting has killed at least 14 people and sent more than 50,000 into evacuation centres. REUTERS/Sukree Sukplang (THAILAND - Tags: POLITICS MILITARY CONFLICT)
World News

The Fighting Between Thailand and Cambodia Isn’t About Territory

July 25, 2025
UAE

How Saudi Arabia’s Sleeping Prince was kept alive For 20 years on a hospital ventilator

July 20, 2025
Next Post

Harvested Hearts, Organs of Slain Soldiers in Delta recovered - DHQ

Parents admit raping their 15-year-old daughter for more than a year because it was 'safer than her having sex with strangers'

Discussion about this post

Dr. Ben Nwoye’s Hiatus and Return: Fear Grips the Ousted APC Leadership in Enugu

BLACK SUNDAY: Islamic Terrorists attack Catholic Church, killing at least 34 Worshipers 

New Male Contraceptive Pill Tested

Dangote daughters take on growing leadership roles as billionaire tycoon steps back

Breakthrough HIV jab to be supplied to millions at knock-down price

Kidnapped Nigerian Catholic Priest Regains Freedom after 51 Days in Captivity

  • British government apologizes to Peter Obi, as hired impostors, master manipulators on rampage abroad

    1239 shares
    Share 496 Tweet 310
  • Maids trafficked and sold to wealthy Saudis on black market

    1065 shares
    Share 426 Tweet 266
  • Flight Attendant Sees Late Husband On Plane

    969 shares
    Share 388 Tweet 242
  • ‘Céline Dion Dead 2023’: Singer killed By Internet Death Hoax

    902 shares
    Share 360 Tweet 225
  • Crisis echoes, fears grow in Amechi Awkunanaw in Enugu State

    735 shares
    Share 294 Tweet 184
  • Trending
  • Comments
  • Latest

British government apologizes to Peter Obi, as hired impostors, master manipulators on rampage abroad

April 13, 2023

Maids trafficked and sold to wealthy Saudis on black market

December 27, 2022
Flight Attendant Sees Late Husband On Plane

Flight Attendant Sees Late Husband On Plane

September 22, 2023
‘Céline Dion Dead 2023’: Singer killed By Internet Death Hoax

‘Céline Dion Dead 2023’: Singer killed By Internet Death Hoax

March 21, 2023
Chief Mrs Ebelechukwu, wife of Willie Obiano, former governor of Anambra state

NIGERIA: No, wife of Biafran warlord, Bianca Ojukwu lied – Ebele Obiano:

0

SOUTH AFRICA: TO LEAVE OR NOT TO LEAVE?

0
kelechi iheanacho

TOP SCORER: IHEANACHA

0
Goodluck Ebele Jonathan

WHAT CAN’TBE TAKEN AWAY FROM JONATHAN

0

Rebuttal To Chief John Idenuwa Akugbe: Truth Is Not Calumny—It Is Courage

August 1, 2025

WAFCON: CAF Reportedly Sacks Referees Director

August 1, 2025

Dr. Ben Nwoye’s Hiatus and Return: Fear Grips the Ousted APC Leadership in Enugu

August 1, 2025

Aboh Monarch Extols Diaspora Contributions To Nation Building

July 31, 2025

ABOUT US

Time Africa Magazine

TIME AFRICA MAGAZINE is an African Magazine with a culture of excellence; a magazine without peer. Nearly a third of its readers hold advanced degrees and include novelists, … READ MORE >>

SECTIONS

  • Aviation
  • Column
  • Crime
  • Europe
  • Featured
  • Gallery
  • Health
  • Interviews
  • Israel-Hamas
  • Lifestyle
  • Magazine
  • Middle-East
  • News
  • Politics
  • Press Release
  • Russia-Ukraine
  • Science
  • Special Report
  • Sports
  • TV/Radio
  • UAE
  • UK
  • US
  • World News

Useful Links

  • AllAfrica
  • Channel Africa
  • El Khabar
  • The Guardian
  • Cairo Live
  • Le Republicain
  • Magazine: 9771144975608
  • Subscribe to TIME AFRICA biweekly news magazine

    Enjoy handpicked stories from around African continent,
    delivered anywhere in the world

    Subscribe

    • About Time Africa Magazine
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact Us
    • WHO’SWHO AWARDS

    © 2025 Time Africa Magazine - All Right Reserved. Time Africa is a trademark of Times Associates, registered in the U.S, & Nigeria. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Service.

    No Result
    View All Result
    • WHO’SWHO AWARDS
    • Politics
    • Column
    • Interviews
    • Gallery
    • Lifestyle
    • Special Report
    • Sports
    • TV/Radio
    • Aviation
    • Health
    • Science
    • World News

    © 2025 Time Africa Magazine - All Right Reserved. Time Africa is a trademark of Times Associates, registered in the U.S, & Nigeria. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Service.

    This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.