Photo: the National Anti-Terrorism Committee
Four men suspected of financing the Moscow concert hall terror attack were detained by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) in Dagestan on Sunday, state news agency TASS reported on Monday.
Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee, an inter-agency coordinating body, said on Sunday that it had carried out a “counter-terrorism operation” in Dagestan, in Russia’s North Caucasus, detaining three people who were planning “to commit a series of terror attacks”.
The FSB provided an update on Monday to say that four foreign nationals had been detained in the cities of Makhachkala and Kaspiysk, on suspicion of financing the Crocus City Hall attackers and providing them with weapons.
The Russian security service also claimed that the men had been planning another terror attack in the city of Kaspiysk, attaching a video in which one of the suspects confesses that he was planning an explosion at a local park or at the pier.
The 22 March attack on Crocus City Hall, a concert venue near Moscow, killed at least 144 people and injured hundreds more. The Russian authorities have already announced the arrests of 12 people suspected of being connected to the attack, including the four suspected gunmen, all of them citizens of Tajikistan.
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the terror attack. Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that the attack was carried out by “radical Islamists”, but implied that Ukraine and the West had played a part in organising it. Kyiv has denied any involvement in the attack, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accusing Putin of exploiting the Crocus shooting for his own gain.
