Video of ISIS attack on Moscow concert hall appears online

Here are the latest developments in the attack

• The Islamic State terror group, which has sought to control large swaths of Iraq and Syria, has released a photo of what it says are four gunmen storming a large Moscow concert hall, opening fire and setting the venue on fire. The group’s Amaq agency said on Telegram.

  “This attack occurred against the backdrop of a fierce war between ‘Islamic State’ and anti-Islamic states,” Reuters news agency Amaq was quoted as saying in a statement citing security sources.

  The group also released footage of the attack on Saturday, which Amaq said was taken by the perpetrators on their way to carry out the attack.

  The video, posted on the group’s Telegram channel, shows at least three men, one carrying a backpack, a second holding a knife and a third carrying a rifle.

• Russia’s state-run Channel One television broadcast footage of four alleged gunmen being detained and interrogated by authorities.

  According to AFP, Channel 1 said the suspect was detained in the village of Hatsun in the Bryansk region, close to the border with Russia and Belarus.

  The video, shot during the day and night, features visuals of the four men and their damaged white car.

  During interrogation, one of the suspects was asked what he was doing at the concert hall and he responded: “I shoot people…for money.”

  The man also said in broken English that he had been offered “half a million rubles ($5,425)” and had received half of the payment.

  The Russian Telegram channel also shared a video in which a man can be seen walking out of the forest with blood on his face, possibly from his ears, Sky News reported.

  The man had difficulty speaking in Russian.

  In another video posted by Russian state television editor Margarita Simonyan, the same man can be seen kneeling to answer questions.

• Meanwhile, the Russian Interior Ministry said all four suspects were foreigners. A Russian lawmaker said some of the detainees were from Tajikistan.

  Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an address to the nation on Saturday that the attackers tried to hide and travel to Ukraine after carrying out the massacre.

  Russia’s FSB security service said the gunman had ties to Ukraine and was captured near the border. It is said that they will be transferred to Moscow.

  Ukrainian military intelligence spokesman Andrei Yusov said Russia was trying to establish a link between the attackers and Ukraine. Reuters news agency: “Ukraine is certainly not involved in this terrorist attack. Ukraine is defending its sovereignty against Russian aggressors, liberating its own territory and is fighting against the occupier’s troops and military targets, not civilians.”

• Although neither President Putin nor Russia’s FSB has provided any evidence linking the attackers to Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said his Russian counterpart is looking for ways to deflect blame.

  “It’s clear that Putin and other thugs just want to blame someone else,” Reuters news agency Zelensky quoted him as saying in his nightly speech on Saturday.

  “Their methods are always the same. We’ve seen it all before, destroyed buildings, shootings and explosions. And they always find someone else to blame.”

  He also said Putin should use his own forces to fight terrorism at home rather than invade Ukraine.

  “They brought hundreds of thousands of their own terrorists to Ukrainian soil to fight against us, and they didn’t care what was happening inside their own country,” the president said.

  “Yesterday, when all this was happening, instead of engaging with his fellow Russians and addressing them, coward Putin sat silent for a full 24 hours, thinking about how to relate this to Ukraine. It was all completely predictable of.”

• The death toll from the March 23 attack now stands at 133.

  Moscow Region Governor Andrei Vorobyov said that 133 bodies had been recovered from the rubble within 24 hours and doctors were “fighting for the lives of 107 people.”

  Belarusian media Nexta said in a social media post that “according to the Russian Telegram channel, 28 bodies were found in a toilet in the Krokus City Hall.”

  “In addition, 14 bodies were found on one of the evacuation stairs,” it added.