Russia says 93 killed, 11 detained in Moscow concert hall attack
LA TimesIn an image from Russian state media, smoke and flames rise from the Crocus City Hall concert venue on the outskirts of Moscow after a deadly attack Friday night. The head of Russia’s Federal Security Service told President Vladimir Putin on Saturday that four people directly involved in the attack were among 11 people detained, Russian state news agency Tass said. A U.S. intelligence official told the Associated Press that American spy agencies had learned that the group’s branch in Afghanistan was planning an attack in Moscow and shared the information with Russian officials. Noting that the Islamic State statement cast its claim as an attack targeting Christians, Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, an expert on the terrorist group, said it appeared to reflect the group’s strategy of “striking wherever they can as part of a global ‘fight the infidels and apostates everywhere.’” In October 2015, a bomb planted by Islamic State downed a Russian passenger plane over the Sinai Peninsula, killing all 224 people on board, most of them Russian vacation-goers returning from Egypt. On March 7, Russia’s top security agency said it thwarted an attack on a synagogue in Moscow by an Islamic State cell, killing several of its members in the Kaluga region near the Russian capital.