After hours of tracking, they finally fell into the net of Russian law enforcement.
The Kremlin announced on Saturday that it had arrested eleven people, including "four" suspected attackers of an armed attack in a concert hall in the suburbs of Moscow, the deadliest to hit Russia since the mid-2000s. The latest report reports 115 dead and around a hundred injured.
The assault, followed by a large fire in the building, was claimed by the Islamic State (IS), which assured that the perpetrators had fled.
For their part, Russian security services continue to blame Ukraine, while kyiv denies any involvement.
Several men involved in the attack
The Kremlin announced this Saturday morning to Russian press agencies “the arrest of 11 people, including the four terrorists directly involved in the attack”.
For its part, the Investigative Committee indicated that the alleged perpetrators of the attack would have used “automatic weapons”, which would have been seized.
The attackers also allegedly “used an flammable liquid to set fire to the concert hall where there were spectators”, among whom there were injured people.
The Telegram news channels Baza and Mash, known to be close to the police, published videos in the hours following the shooting showing at least two armed men advancing in the hall, and others in which corpses appeared, as well as groups of people rushing towards the exit.
A journalist from the state news agency Ria Novosti also indicated that at least three individuals in camouflage outfits burst into the concert hall before opening fire and throwing "a grenade or a bomb incendiary, which caused a fire.
“EI-K”, main suspect
IS, which has already targeted Russia on several occasions, claimed on one of its Telegram accounts that its fighters “attacked a large gathering (…) in the vicinity of the Russian capital Moscow”.
The jihadist organization indicated that its commando had then “returned to its base in complete safety”.
The group, which Russia is fighting in Syria and which is also active in the Russian Caucasus, has already carried out attacks on Russian soil since the end of the 2010s, but it has never claimed responsibility for an attack of such magnitude in the country.
VIDEO.
Moscow: ISIS claims responsibility for attack that left 115 dead in a concert hall
U.S. counterterrorism officials told Reuters and the New York Times that an Afghan branch of the terrorist organization is believed to be behind the attack: the Islamic State of Khorasan, "IS-K," whose members are said to be active in Russia.
The group, founded in 2015, is making life difficult for the Taliban and has several times demonstrated its willingness and ability to strike outside Afghan territory.
He is notably at the origin of a suicide attack at Kabul airport in August 2021, which killed some 170 civilians and 13 American soldiers, as well as another against the Russian embassy in Afghanistan in 2022, which had killed two Russian employees and four Afghans.
Russia has become a favored target of EI-K, which has criticized it in particular for its invasion of Ukraine and its military interventions in Africa and Syria.
According to American media, Washington had collected information that this branch was preparing an attack against Moscow.
The American embassy in Russia had also warned its citizens two weeks ago that it was “closely monitoring information according to which extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, including concerts”.
On Tuesday, Vladimir Putin rejected these “provocative” statements, saying that “all this looks like pure and simple blackmail and a desire to intimidate and destabilize our society”.
Moscow maintains its suspicions about kyiv
For the moment, Russia has not commented on the IS claim and continues to make the link with Ukraine, against a backdrop of war between the two countries.
The Russian security services (FSB), cited by the state news agency Ria Novosti, announced that they had arrested the four alleged attackers in the Bryansk region, bordering Belarus and Ukraine, while they were trying to escape in a car.
According to Russian agencies, the attackers fled in a white Renault.
The image of a white vehicle stopped at the edge of the forest has widely circulated on social networks.
The FSB claimed that the suspects had “contacts” in the country and planned to flee there, without any proof of these supposed links.
“After committing the terrorist attack, the criminals planned to cross the Russian-Ukrainian border and had appropriate contacts on the Ukrainian side,” he said, quoted by the TASS agency.
Earlier, Moscow had already blamed the Ukrainian government: the former president and current vice-president of the Security Council of Russia Dmitry Medvedev had promised to "destroy" the "terrorists of the Kiev regime" if it turned out that they were linked to the shooting.
For its part, Ukraine assured that its country had “absolutely nothing to do” with this “terrorist act”.
Ukrainian military intelligence accused “Russian special services” of being behind the attack in Moscow in order to “accuse Ukraine and provoke “escalation” and “expand” its assault. against his neighbor.
As for the White House, it clarified that it had “no indication at this stage that Ukraine or Ukrainians are involved”.
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Moscow attack: suspects had “contacts” in Ukraine, Russian security services say
Despite IS's claim, many questions still remain unanswered.
Suspicions also fell for a time on Tajikistan, an ally of Russia faced with a multitude of armed Islamist movements.
According to some Russian media and MP Alexandre Khinstein, some of the suspects are from the country, which the authorities of this Central Asian country have denied.
They claimed to have “not received confirmation from the Russian authorities regarding the false information currently circulating about the involvement of Tajik citizens”.
Russian forces are continuing to hunt down potential accomplices, according to Russian media.
According to the Russian agency TASS, Interpol Secretary General Jürgen Stock said the services were ready to support Russian investigators in their investigations.