crime
Putin: Terrorist attack carried out by radical Islamists
Last Friday there was a terrorist attack on a concert hall near Moscow. photo
© Vitaly Smolnikov/AP/dpa
Kremlin leader Putin now assumes that radical Islamists carried out the terrorist attack near Moscow. He glances a little towards Ukraine.
The terrorist attack near Moscow is, according to the Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin was committed by Islamists. “We know that the crime was committed by radical Islamists, whose ideology the Islamic world itself has been fighting for centuries,” Putin said at an event to reflect on Friday’s attack, in which 139 people are believed to have died. “We now know whose hands perpetrated this crime against Russia and its people, now we want to know who commissioned it.” In the attack, four men shot at visitors to Crocus City Hall and set the building on fire with gasoline.
Putin thus deviated from his original line, in which he had suspected a “Ukrainian trace” behind the bloody crime. Nevertheless, it should be clarified why the terrorists wanted to escape to Ukraine after the bloody act. “And who was expecting them there,” he added.
White House: “Kremlin propaganda”
The White House dismissed statements from the Russian leadership about Ukraine’s alleged involvement in the deadly terrorist attack as “Kremlin propaganda.” Putin and his cronies in the Kremlin were trying to find a way to blame Ukraine, National Security Council communications director John Kirby said in Washington on Monday. “But there is no connection to Ukraine.”
Putin made it clear that several questions now needed to be clarified. “How do radical Islamists, posing as devout Muslims and professing so-called pure Islam, come to commit serious atrocities and crimes during the holy month of Ramadan, which is holy to all Muslims?” Putin asked at the meeting with representatives cited by various authorities. It also remains to be seen “whether radical and terrorist Islamic organizations are really interested in attacking Russia, which today stands for a just solution to the escalating Middle East conflict.”
The terrorist militia Islamic State has already claimed responsibility for the attack several times. Western security authorities and experts believe the confession is credible and suspect the IS offshoot Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISPK) was behind the attack. Russian propaganda initially tried to establish an alleged connection with Ukraine, against which Putin has been waging a brutal war of aggression for more than two years. However, there is no evidence for this claim. The Ukrainian leadership has also strictly rejected the allegations.
Death toll rises to 139
Meanwhile, the number of deaths from the attack rose to 139. Of the more than 180 injured, more than 50 have already been released into home care, said Deputy Prime Minister Tatjana Golikova. 93 people, including five children, are still being treated as inpatients. By Monday evening, 75 dead had been identified. The patients are spread across clinics in the capital and the Moscow region, and their injuries vary in severity.
The cleanup work in the destroyed hall and the search for possible additional victims among the rubble should be completed by Tuesday, said the governor of the Moscow region, Andrei Vorobyov. Grieving people continued to lay flowers at an improvised memorial site on the fence of the Crocus City site.
After the attack, Russian security forces arrested eleven suspects in the Bryansk region, south of Moscow. Seven of the men, including the four suspected shooters, have now been taken into custody by the Basmanny District Court in Moscow.
Injuries indicate torture
The four alleged main perpetrators appeared before the judge on Sunday evening. There were injuries on their bodies that indicated torture by Russian security forces. They had severely swollen faces, lacerations and bruises. One had a large bandage on his ear. Another was no longer able to walk on his own and reportedly temporarily lost consciousness. He was wheeled on a stretcher to the courtroom where the arrest warrants were issued. Videos had previously appeared on social networks showing that the suspected attackers were tortured and that one of them even had his ear cut off.
The UN Security Council commemorated the victims with a minute’s silence and expressed its condolences to Russia. The body’s acting president, Japanese UN Ambassador Yamazaki Kazuyuki, called on everyone present to stand for a minute’s silence “in memory of the victims of the shameful and cowardly terrorist attack.”