The fire which has been raging at the Crocus City Hall has been “mostly eliminated”, Moscow’s governor has said. “There are still some pockets of fire,” Andrey Vorobyov said on Telegram and emergency services were “able to enter the auditorium” – where many victims are believed to have been killed.
More from the US now, as the White House confirms that it warned Russian authorities earlier in March about an attack possibly targeting “large gatherings” in Moscow.
“Earlier this month, the US government had information about a planned terrorist attack in Moscow – potentially targeting large gatherings, to include concerts,” National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said. Washington “shared this information with Russian authorities”, she added.
Gordon Corera, the BBC’s security correspondent, earlier stated that the Kremlin shrugged these warnings off as “propaganda” – even after the US made its concerns public to Americans staying in Russia. An Islamic State affiliate’s claim that it was behind the Moscow attack would, if proved correct, be the latest in a number of Islamist-linked attacks in or against Russia in recent years.
A Russian plane was blown up over Egypt’s Sinai desert in 2015 with 224 people on board, most of them Russian citizens. That attack was claimed by Islamic State, which later published a photograph of the explosive device.
In 2017, a bomb attack on the St Petersburg metro that killed 15 people was also linked to radical Islamists. Militant groups have been fighting Russian forces in the North Caucasus region of the country for decades.
Large numbers of them flocked to Syria to join IS when the group was formed 10 years ago. Some militants that operate in the Russian North Caucasus have declared allegiance to IS, say experts.
But the specific group that has claimed today’s attack, ISIS-K, is the Islamic State affiliate in Khorasan – an old term for a region that includes parts of Iran, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan.
Counterterrorism experts say Russia has found itself “in the crosshairs” of ISIS-K, which frequently criticises President Putin in its propaganda.
It accuses the Kremlin of atrocities against Muslim people in military campaigns in Chechnya and Syria, as well as in the Soviet-era invasion of Afghanistan.