What we all know to date | EUROtoday

Issued on: 23/03/2024 – 04:12Modified: 23/03/2024 – 09:28

2 min

Here is what we all know concerning the assault on the Crocus City Hall in Krasnogorsk forward of a live performance by the Piknik rock band:

Attackers in ‘tactical uniforms’

A witness advised AFP it was a couple of minutes earlier than the beginning of the live performance by Piknik when computerized gunfire rang out. There had been screams after which panic, stated Alexei, a spectator who didn’t give his household title.

Emergency providers quoted by the Interfax information company stated between two and 5 armed attackers wearing “tactical uniforms” and carrying computerized weapons, entered the live performance corridor and opened hearth.

Russian social media channels near the safety providers confirmed movies of no less than two males strolling into the corridor. Others confirmed our bodies and teams of screaming folks dashing in direction of exits.

A RIA Novosti journalist on the live performance stated that the attackers opened hearth and threw a “grenade” or “incendiary bomb”, which set off the fireplace.

Scores of individuals hid behind seats within the corridor or rushed in direction of entrances to the basement or roof to flee the bullets.

An AFP journalist on the scene hours after the assault noticed black smoke and flames coming from the roof of the live performance corridor, which might maintain as much as 6,000 folks. Media stated a part of the roof had collapsed.

Escapes and rescues

The Emergency Situations Ministry stated that fireside providers helped about 100 folks escape by the basement of the live performance corridor.

TASS information company stated that the entire Piknik group had been evacuated safely.

Rescue operations had been additionally launched for folks trapped on the roof.

Russia hunts attackers

The head of the FSB safety service knowledgeable Russian President Vladimir Putin “about the detention of 11 people, including all four terrorists directly involved in carrying out the attack,” Russian state information businesses cited the Kremlin as saying in a press release.

Authorities say the hunt for different attackers concerned continues and {that a} “terrorism” investigation has been launched.

The United Nations and the United States condemned the assault, as did the European Union and different Western international locations which have sided with Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion.

An announcement launched by the Islamic State group claimed accountability however Russia didn’t instantly blame anybody.

Former president Dmitry Medvedev did say, nonetheless, that Ukrainian leaders discovered to be concerned could be “destroyed”.

The United States condemned the “horrible” occasions, however stated there was no signal of Ukrainian involvement.

Ukraine intelligence blamed “Russian special services”, saying the assault could be used to step up the struggle.

The Ukrainian overseas ministry stated accusations towards the nation had been “a planned provocation by the Kremlin to further fuel anti-Ukrainian hysteria in Russian society”.

Warnings and the darkish historical past of radical assaults

The US embassy had stated two weeks earlier than the assault that there was a danger of “extremists” concentrating on mass gatherings in Moscow, together with live shows.

Russian authorities introduced on March 3 that six suspected Islamic State fighters had been killed in an operation in Ingushetia, a small Muslim-majority republic within the Caucasus area.

Russia has been the goal of previous assaults by Islamic militants, but additionally mass killings with no clear political hyperlink.

In 2002, Chechen separatist fighters took 912 folks hostage in a Moscow theatre, the Dubrovka, demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops from the Caucasus republic.

Special forces attacked the theatre to finish the hostage-taking and 130 folks had been killed, practically all suffocated by a fuel utilized by safety forces to knock out the gunmen.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)