Moscow Concert Hall Shooting (March 2024)

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    U.S. Intelligence Warning to Moscow Named Specific Target of Attack

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    The C.I.A. told Russia that Islamic State terrorists were plotting an attack on Crocus City Hall, a concert venue.The U.S. warning to Russia ahead of a terrorist attack near Moscow was highly specific: Crocus City Hall was a potential target of the Islamic State, according to U.S. officials.The warning had the right venue but imprecise timing, suggesting that the attack could come within days. Indeed, the public warning by the United States Embassy on March 7 warned of potential terrorist attacks in the next two days.Gunmen stormed the hall on March 22, killing 144 people, the deadliest attack in Russia in nearly 20 years. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, and Russia charged four men from Tajikistan, accusing them of carrying out the massacre.But President Vladimir V. Putin and other top officials have continued to claim, without evidence, that Ukraine could have played a role in the attack, a statement that American officials have repeatedly said was baseless.The news that the U.S. warning specified the precise target of the attack was reported earlier Tuesday by The Washington Post.The United States works intensely to collect intelligence on potential plots by the Islamic State and its Afghanistan-based branch, ISIS-Khorasan.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Russia Digs In on Claim Ukraine and West Were Behind Terrorist Attack

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      The head of Russia’s top security agency said, without providing evidence, that the assault was “facilitated by Western special services.” Ukraine has denied involvement, calling the assertions “lies.”Russia on Tuesday deepened its accusations against Ukraine and its Western allies, claiming again, without evidence, that they were most likely involved in the terrorist attack on a concert hall near Moscow that killed at least 139 people.Aleksandr Bortnikov, the director of the Federal Security Service, the top security agency in Russia, said that the assault “was prepared by both radical Islamists themselves and, naturally, facilitated by Western special services.”The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack, and eight people have been arrested in connection with the assault.According to the state news agency Tass, when asked whether Russia believed the United States, Britain and Ukraine were involved in the attack, Mr. Bortnikov said “we believe that’s the case.”“Overall, we believe that they were involved in this,” Mr. Bortnikov told journalists, referring to Ukraine. He said that his accusations were still based on preliminary information.The Ukrainian government has denied it was involved in the assault. Speaking about Mr. Bortnikov’s statements, Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior Ukrainian presidential aide, called them “lies.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Russians Mourn People Killed in Terrorist Concert Hall Attack

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      Russian state media pushed the idea that Ukraine was the obvious culprit, but at least three of the four suspects charged on Sunday are from the Central Asian nation of Tajikistan.Bodies were recovered, flowers were laid and fingers were pointed on Sunday as competing narratives took shape over who was behind the terrorist attack on a Russian concert hall where at least 137 people out to enjoy an evening of music were killed.President Vladimir V. Putin has hinted that Ukraine was behind the Friday night attack. He stopped short of accusing Kyiv directly, but on Sunday, some of his allies showed no such compunction.American officials have said that the attack appeared to be the work of an offshoot of the Islamic State, and that there is no evidence connecting Kyiv to it. But many Russian nationalist commentators and ultraconservative hawks are pushing the idea that Ukraine is the obvious culprit.A pro-Kremlin analyst who is a regular on Russian state television, Sergei A. Markov, wrote in a post on Telegram that the Kremlin must work at isolating the Ukrainian leadership by “connecting the terrorist act not with ISIS but with the Ukrainian government as much as possible.”Russian state news outlets barely mentioned that ISIS itself claimed that it was responsible for the attack at Crocus City Hall, a concert venue in the outskirts of Moscow. The ISIS offshoot U.S. officials believe was tied to the attack, the Islamic State Khorasan, which is known as ISIS-K, has been active in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran.Russian were stunned by the attack. People lined up to leave flowers at Crocus City Hall, in the Moscow suburbs, on Sunday.Nanna Heitmann for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Screams and Blank Stares of Shock: Horror at a Russian Concert

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      Once they heard the shots ring out on Friday night at Crocus City Hall, Efim Fidrya and his wife ran down to the building’s basement and hid with three others in a bathroom.They listened as the gunfire began and thousands of people who had come to a sold-out rock concert on Moscow’s outskirts began screaming and trying to flee.Horrified and scared, Mr. Fidrya did the only thing he could think to do: He held on tight to the bathroom door, which didn’t lock, trying to protect the group in case the assailants came to find them.“While we could hear shooting and screaming, I stood the whole time holding the bathroom door shut,” Mr. Fidrya, an academic, said in a phone interview from Moscow. “The others were standing in the corner so that if someone started shooting through the door, they wouldn’t be in the line of fire.”They didn’t know it then, but they were sheltering from what became Russia’s deadliest terror attack in two decades, after four gunmen had entered the popular concert venue and began shooting rapid-fire weapons.Their story is one of many harrowing accounts that have emerged in the days since the attack, which killed at least 137 people. More than 100 injured people are hospitalized, some in critical condition, health officials said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Russia’s Battle With Extremists Has Simmered for Years

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      The Islamic State has long threatened to strike Russia for helping the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, stay in control.In the past few months, deep in the forbidding deserts of central Syria, Russian forces have quietly joined the Syrian military in intensifying attacks against Islamic State strongholds, including bombing what local news reports called the dens and caves where the extremist fighters hide.While the world was focused on the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, this type of skirmishing has been simmering for years in Syria, and the Islamic State has long threatened to strike Russia directly for shoring up the regime of its sworn enemy, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.That moment appeared to have come on Friday night with the bloody assault on a Moscow concert hall that left more than 130 people dead. “The fiercest in years,” said a statement of responsibility issued on Saturday by a branch of the Islamic State via its news agency, referring to the long history of brutal terrorist attacks pitting jihadist forces against Moscow.“They have framed this attack as coming in the context of the normal, ongoing war between ISIS and the anti-Islamic countries,” said Hanna Notte, a Berlin-based expert on Russian foreign and security policy at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. “This seems to be within the overarching theme of Russia in Afghanistan, Russia in Chechnya, Russia in Syria.”President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, right, meeting with the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, in Moscow last year.Vladimir Gerdo/Sputnik, via EPA-EFE, via ShutterstockIn his brief remarks on Saturday, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia did not mention the claim from the Islamic State, but he did threaten to punish those responsible. “All perpetrators, organizers and commissioners of this crime will receive a just and inevitable punishment,” Mr. Putin said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Russia Arrests 4 Suspects in Moscow Attack as Death Toll Climbs to 133

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      The Russian authorities said on Saturday that they had arrested the four individuals suspected of setting a suburban Moscow concert on fire and killing at least 133 people, one of the worst terrorist attacks to jolt Russia in President Vladimir V. Putin’s nearly quarter century in power.The Islamic State has taken responsibility for the brutal assault in three different messages issued since Friday. But Mr. Putin, in his first public remarks on the tragedy more than 19 hours after the attack, made no mention of the extremist group or the identities of the perpetrators, broadly blaming “international terrorism,” while Russian state media quickly began laying the groundwork to suggest that Ukraine and its Western backers were responsible.The Russian leader did take a swipe at Ukraine, saying that the suspects were apprehended while traveling to the Russian border, where he alleged a crossing was being prepared for them from “the Ukrainian side.” Kyiv has denied any involvement in the attack.Russian state news broadcasts largely ignored or cast doubt on the ISIS attribution, and commentators focused on trying to blame Ukraine. As of Saturday, the authorities had not disclosed the identities of the alleged gunmen.But state news media did show what it described as footage of interrogations of at least two of the suspects, including one who spoke in Tajik through an interpreter and another who said he carried out the killings for money after being recruited over the messaging app Telegram. Russia’s Interior Ministry said the four suspects were all foreign citizens.In his video address, Mr. Putin said the four main perpetrators had been apprehended, as well as seven other individuals.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Piknik, a longtime Russian rock band, is now at the center of a tragedy.

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      Early Saturday, Piknik, one of Russia’s most popular heritage rock bands, published a message to its page on Vkontakte, one of the country’s largest social media sites: “We are deeply shocked by this terrible tragedy and mourn with you.”The night before, the band was scheduled to play the first of two sold-out concerts, accompanied by a symphony orchestra, at Crocus City Hall in suburban Moscow. But before Piknik took the stage, four gunmen entered the vast venue, opened fire and murdered at least 133 people.The victims appear to have included some of Piknik’s own team. On Saturday evening, another note appeared on the band’s Vkontakte page to say that the woman who ran the band’s merchandise stalls was missing.“We are not ready to believe the worst,” the message said.The attack at Crocus City Hall has brought renewed attention to Piknik, a band that has provided the soundtrack to the lives of many Russian rock fans for over four decades.Ilya Kukulin, a cultural historian at Amherst College in Massachusetts, said in an interview that Piknik was one of the Soviet Union’s “monsters of rock,” with songs inspired by classic Western rock acts including David Bowie and a range of Russian styles.Since releasing its debut album, 1982’s “Smoke,” Piknik — led by Edmund Shklyarsky, the band’s singer and guitarist — has grown in popularity despite its music being often gloomy with gothic lyrics. Kukulin attributed this partly to the group’s inventive stage shows.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Maps and Diagrams of the Moscow Concert Hall Attack

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      The shooting and arson attack that killed at least 133 people and wounded more than 140 in suburban Moscow on Friday night took place at Crocus City Hall, a popular concert venue with a capacity of more than 6,000. The venue is part of a sprawling, upscale complex of buildings that also includes a shopping […] More

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      U.S. Says ISIS Was Responsible for Deadly Moscow Concert Hall Attack

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      A branch of the Islamic State claimed responsibility on Friday for the attack in Moscow that killed at least 60 people and injured about 100 others, and U.S. officials confirmed the claim shortly afterward.The United States collected intelligence in March that Islamic State-Khorasan, known as ISIS-K, the branch of the group based in Afghanistan, had been planning an attack on Moscow, according to officials. ISIS members have been active in Russia, one U.S. official said.After a period of relative quiet, the Islamic State has been trying to increase its external attacks, according to U.S. counterterrorism officials. Most of those plots in Europe have been thwarted, prompting assessments that the group had diminished capabilities.“ISIS-K has been fixated on Russia for the past two years,” frequently criticizing President Vladimir V. Putin in its propaganda, said Colin P. Clarke, a counterterrorism analyst at the Soufan Group, a security consulting firm based in New York. “ISIS-K accuses the Kremlin of having Muslim blood in its hands, referencing Moscow’s interventions in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Syria.”The attack on Friday in Moscow, like a January assault in Iran claimed by the group, could prompt a reassessment of its ability to strike outside its home territory.In addition to publicly warning on March 7 about a possible attack, U.S. officials said they had privately told Russian officials about the intelligence pointing to an impending attack. It is not clear how much information the United States gave Russian officials beyond what was in the public warning.American intelligence agencies have a “duty to warn” potential targets of dangers when they learn of them.The United States had warned Iran of a possible attack ahead of twin bombings in January that killed scores and wounded hundreds of others at a memorial service for Iran’s former top general, Qassim Suleimani, who was killed by a U.S. drone strike four years before.Western intelligence agencies had collected intelligence about possible planning by ISIS-K to bomb the service. As in Russia, ISIS-K claimed responsibility for that attack. More