On Friday, ISIS confirmed the arrest of four of its members in Russia, the perpetrators of the deadly attack on a concert hall near Moscow, a day after new accusations were made by Russian authorities denouncing their “connections with Ukrainian nationalists.”
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ISIS has already claimed responsibility for the March 22 attack, which left 143 people dead a week ago at Crocus City Hall, but Russian officials insist Ukraine was behind it. For its part, Kiev denies any involvement in this killing.
The jihadist organization’s weekly confirmed, in its issue issued on Thursday, at dawn on Friday, that “four fighters from the Caliphate’s soldiers attacked the hall located on the outskirts of Moscow.”
Three of them used machine guns, while the fourth took responsibility for starting a fire, according to what Al-Naba newspaper published on the jihadist organization’s Telegram application channels.
The attackers were then the target of a “pursuit” led by ground and air forces, which ended with them being “encircled” in a forest. The news said: “May God free them from their families.”
The attack, the deadliest in Russia in the past 20 years, killed at least 143 people and injured 360 others, including children. Russian authorities previously announced the arrest of 11 people, including the four suspected attackers. Eight were charged and taken into custody.
The Russian Investigative Committee, the body responsible for the main criminal investigations, confirmed on Thursday that the perpetrators of the attack had “connections with Ukrainian nationalists” and that they received “large” sums of money from Ukraine.
President Vladimir Putin himself claimed that the four attackers were arrested in Russia's Bryansk region while trying to flee into Ukraine, where a “window” had been set up allowing them to cross the border on the Ukrainian side.
The director of the Russian Security Service (FSB), Alexander Bortnikov, had accused the Ukrainian and Western intelligence services of “facilitating” the attack.
