60 dead, 145 injured in Moscow concert hall attack; Daesh claims responsibility

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Smoke rises above the burning Crocus City Hall concert venue following a reported shooting incident, outside Moscow, Russia, March 22, 2024. (Reuters)
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Ambulances and vehicles of Russian emergency services are parked outside the burning Crocus City Hall concert venue following a shooting incident, outside Moscow, Russia, March 22, 2024. (Reuters)
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Russia’s foreign ministry called the incident a “terrorist attack” that had to be condemned. (AFP)
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Russia’s foreign ministry called the incident a “terrorist attack” that had to be condemned. (AFP)
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Smoke rises above the burning Crocus City Hall concert venue following a reported shooting incident, on the outskirts of Moscow on Mar. 22, 2024. (Reuters)
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Updated 23 March 2024
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60 dead, 145 injured in Moscow concert hall attack; Daesh claims responsibility

  • Russian authorities said a hunt had been launched for the attackers
  • Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry issues condemnation of attack

MOSCOW: At least sixty people have been killed after gunmen stormed a concert hall near Moscow on Friday in one of the deadliest attacks on Russia in decades.

Gunmen opened fire at a rock concert leaving dead and wounded before a major fire spread through the theater, Moscow’s mayor and Russian news agencies reported.

Authorities said a hunt had been launched for the attackers and that a “terrorism” investigation had been launched.

Attackers dressed in camouflaged outfits entered the building, opened fire and threw a grenade or incendiary bomb, according to a journalist for the RIA Novosti news agency who was at the scene.

Russian authorities said 145 people were injured in the incident that took place in Crocus City Hall.

The attack has been widely condemned.

The Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin had been informed minutes after the assailants went into the large music venue which can accommodate 6,200 people.

“The president is constantly supplied by all relevant services with information about what is happening and the measures being taken,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

US intelligence confirmed a claim by Daesh that it was behind the attack, but a spokesman for investigators said that it was too early to make an assessment on who was behind the incident.

But a source close to the Russian probe told Arab News that investigators are inclined to exclude versions of Ukraine and Daesh involvement.

However, a number of leading Russian experts believe that the terrorist attack is the work of the Ukrainian special services. In their view, without the help of Western intelligence agencies, it is unlikely that Ukrainians would have been able to plan and carry out this attack.

The US presidency called the attack “terrible” but said there was no immediate indication of any link to the war in Ukraine.

A US intelligence official told The Associated Press that US intelligence agencies had learned Daesh’s branch in Afghanistan was planning an attack in Moscow and shared the information with Russian officials.

On March 7, the US Embassy in Moscow said it was “monitoring reports that extremists are planning to attack large gatherings” of people in the Russian capital, “including concerts”.

Putin denounced the Western warnings as an attempt to intimidate Russians. “All that resembles open blackmail and an attempt to frighten and destabilize our society,” he said earlier this week.

Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin confirmed there were deaths in what he called a “terrible tragedy” at the concert by Russian rock band Piknik.

“I offer my condolences to the families of the dead,” said Moscow’s mayor as a major security operation was launched around the theater and nearby shopping mall.

Sobyanin said he had canceled all public events in Moscow for the weekend.

Russia’s foreign ministry labeled the incident a “terrorist attack” that had to be condemned.

Fire quickly spread through the Crocus City Hall, north of the Russian capital, where the theater can hold several thousand people and has staged several concerts by top international artists, according to the reports.

Automatic gunfire was used on the audience, the RIA Novosti journalist reported.

“People who were in the hall were led on the ground to protect themselves from the shooting for 15 or 20 minutes,” the journalist was quoted as saying.

People started crawling out when it was safe, the journalist reported, adding that security forces were at the scene.

About 100 people escaped through the theater basement while others were sheltering on the the roof, the emergency services ministry said on its Telegram channel.

Telegram news channels Baza and Mash, which are close to security forces, showed video images of flames and black smoke pouring from the concert hall.

 

Other images showed two men walking through the hall with at least one person left on the ground near the entrance.

Spectators were also seen hiding behind seats or trying to escape.

Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said it had been a “terrorist attack.”

“The whole international community must condemn this odious crime,” she said on Telegram.

The Ministry of Education recommended that all educational institutions in the capital region announce unscheduled holidays in the coming days.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry issued a statement on Friday condemning the attack.

TASS news agency said that SOBR and special police forces and the OMON anti-riot squad had been sent to the Crocus hall.
It added that all the members of the rock band had been evacuated safely.

Orthodox church leader Patriarch Kirill was “praying for peace for the souls of the dead,” said his spokesman Vladimir Legoyda.

— With input from Reuters, AP, AFP

 


Trump says he will speak with Russia’s Putin

Updated 01 February 2025
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Trump says he will speak with Russia’s Putin

Reuters

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Friday he would be speaking to Russian President Vladimir Putin and said he thinks they will perhaps do something he described as significant.
Trump did not elaborate. He made the comments to reports in the White House’s Oval Office. He also said that Washington was having serious discussions with Moscow.

Russian missile attack hits Odesa, wounding three

Updated 01 February 2025
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Russian missile attack hits Odesa, wounding three

KYIV: A Russian missile attack struck the center of the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa on Friday evening, wounding two women and a teenage boy and damaging historic buildings, officials said.
The Black Sea city known for its picturesque streets of 19th-century buildings is regularly targeted by Russian strikes, often on its port area.
“We already know about three victims of an enemy rocket attack on the center of Odesa,” the regional governor Oleg Kiper wrote on social media.
“Two women were injured” and “hospitalized in a moderate condition,” Kiper said after the attack, adding that three ballistic missiles were fired at intervals of a few minutes.
The governor later posted that a teenage boy born in 2006 “sustained a head wound” and was also hospitalized.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned what he called an “absolutely deliberate attack by Russian terrorists,” saying it was fortunate that it caused no deaths.
Kiper posted photos showing rescuers wheeling a woman on a stretcher outside the city’s historic Hotel Bristol. The photos also show damage to the 19th-century hotel’s ornate facade and interior, including a grand staircase.
Ukraine’s emergency service posted video showing debris littering the street outside the Bristol and a woman with dust on her clothes being helped by rescuers.
It said firefighters had rescued a woman trapped in her room on the second floor and extinguished a fire on the roof.
“Among the people who were at the epicenter of the attack were Norwegian diplomatic representatives,” Zelensky said.
“There is a lot of damage and destruction in the UNESCO-protected area,” Odesa’s mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov said.
Odesa’s historic center is on UNESCO’s World Heritage List.
Its Transfiguration Cathedral — destroyed by the Soviets and rebuilt in the 2000s — was badly damaged by a Russian strike in July 2023.
“As a result of the explosions, a number of historical monuments, including the Literary, Historical and Local Lore, Archaeological Museums, Museum of Western and Eastern Art, and the Philharmonic, have had their windows smashed and their facades damaged,” Kiper said.
Ukrainian media posted photos showing what appeared to be a large crater near the hotel, and fallen masonry, blown-out windows and debris littering the floor inside.
Russian military bloggers alleged that foreign military specialists were staying in the hotel.

The Taliban take over Afghanistan’s only luxury hotel, more than a decade after attacking it

Updated 01 February 2025
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The Taliban take over Afghanistan’s only luxury hotel, more than a decade after attacking it

The Taliban are taking over the operations of Afghanistan’s only luxury hotel in Kabul, more than a decade after they launched a deadly attack there that killed nine people.
The Serena Hotel said Friday it was closing its operations in the Afghan capital on Feb. 1, with the Hotel State Owned Corporation taking over. The corporation is overseen by the finance ministry.
The finance ministry wasn’t immediately available for comment. Neither the Serena nor the government clarified the terms under which the hotel was changing hands.
The Taliban first targeted the Serena in 2008 and again in 2014. Acting Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani acknowledged planning the 2008 attack, which killed eight, including US citizen Thor David Hesla.
A statement from the Serena, a brand owned by the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development, said it had trained thousands of Afghan nationals, hosted large numbers of foreign guests and delegations, and set high international benchmarks in hospitality standards.
It asked people to direct their queries to the Hotel State Owned Corporation. Kabul no longer appears as a destination on the Serena website.
According to information on the finance ministry website, the corporation’s mission is to revive and develop Afghanistan’s hotel industry. It operates three other hotels in Afghanistan, two in Kabul and one in the eastern city of Nangarhar.
Tourism official Mohammad Saeed told The Associated Press last year that he wanted Afghanistan to become a tourism powerhouse.
At that time, in a sign the country was preparing for more overseas visitors, the Serena reopened its women’s spa and salon for foreign females after a monthslong closure, only to shut them again under pressure from authorities.
The Taliban have barred women from gyms, public spaces including parks, and education. Last year, they ordered the closure of beauty salons, allegedly because they offered services forbidden by Islam.

White House says Trump tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China will come Saturday

Updated 01 February 2025
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White House says Trump tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China will come Saturday

  • “Starting tomorrow, those tariffs will be in place,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Friday
  • The tariffs carry both political and economic risks for Trump

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump will put in place 25 percent tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico and 10 percent tariffs on goods from China effective on Saturday, the White House said, but it provided no word on whether there would be any exemptions to the measures that could result in swift price increases to US consumers.
Trump had been threatening the tariffs to ensure greater cooperation from the countries on stopping illegal immigration and the smuggling of chemicals used for fentanyl, but he has also pledged to use tariffs to boost domestic manufacturing and raise revenues for the federal government.
“Starting tomorrow, those tariffs will be in place,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Friday. “These are promises made and promises kept by the president.”
The tariffs carry both political and economic risks for Trump, who is just two weeks into his second term. Many voters backed the Republican on the promise that he could tamp down inflation, but the possibility of tariffs could trigger higher prices and potentially disrupt the energy, auto, lumber and agricultural sectors.
Trump had said he was weighing issuing an exemption for Canadian and Mexican oil imports, but Leavitt said she had no information to share on the president’s decision on any potential carveouts.
The United States imported almost 4.6 million barrels of oil daily from Canada in October and 563,000 barrels from Mexico, according to the Energy Information Administration. US daily production during that month averaged nearly 13.5 million barrels a day.
Trump has previously stated a 10 percent tariff on Chinese imports would be on top of other import taxes charged on products from the country.
Shortly after Leavitt spoke, the S&P 500 stock index sold off and largely erased its gains on the day.
“We should expect all three countries to retaliate,’’ said Wendy Cutler, a former US trade negotiator. China responded aggressively to tariffs Trump imposed on Chinese goods during his first term, targeting the president’s supporters in rural America with retaliatory taxes on US farm exports.
Both Canada and Mexico have said they’ve prepared the option of retaliatory tariffs to be used if necessary, which in turn could trigger a wider trade conflict that economic analyzes say could hurt growth and further accelerate inflation.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday that Canada is ready is a respond if Trump goes ahead with the tariffs, but he did not give details.
“We’re ready with a response, a purposeful, forceful but reasonable, immediate response,” he said. “It’s not what we want, but if he moves forward, we will also act.”
Trudeau said tariffs would have “disastrous consequences” for the U.S, putting American jobs at risk and causing prices to rise. Trudeau reiterated that less than 1 percent of the fentanyl and illegal crossings into the US come from Canada.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Friday that Mexico has maintained a dialogue with Trump’s team since before he returned to the White House, but she emphasized that Mexico has a “Plan A, Plan B, Plan C for what the United States government decides.”
“Now it is very important that the Mexican people know that we are always going to defend the dignity of our people, we are always going to defend the respect of our sovereignty and a dialogue between equals, as we have always said, without subordination,” Sheinbaum said.
Liu Pengyu, spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said the two countries should resolve their differences through dialogue and consultation. “There is no winner in a trade war or tariff war, which serves the interests of neither side nor the world,” Liu said in a statement. “Despite the differences, our two countries share huge common interests and space for cooperation.”
A study this month by Warwick McKibbin and Marcus Noland of the Peterson Institute for International Economics concluded that the 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico and 10 percent tariffs on China “would damage all the economies involved, including the US’’
“For Mexico,’’ the study said, “a 25 percent tariff would be catastrophic. Moreover, the economic decline caused by the tariff could increase the incentives for Mexican immigrants to cross the border illegally into the US — directly contradicting another Trump administration priority.’’
Cutler, now vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said the extent of the economic damage will depend on how long the tariffs are in effect.
If it’s just a few days, “that’s one thing. If they are in place for weeks onto months, we’re going to see supply chain disruptions, higher costs for US manufacturers, leading to higher prices for US consumers,’’ she said. “It could have macroeconomic impacts. It could affect the stock market. Then internationally it could lead to more tension with our trading partners and make it harder for us to work with them.”


Chad president welcomes ‘complete’ departure of French forces

Updated 31 January 2025
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Chad president welcomes ‘complete’ departure of French forces

  • Soldiers and fighter aircraft from France have been stationed in Chad almost continuously since the country’s independence in 1960, helping to train the Chadian military

N’DJAMENA: President Mahamat Idriss Deby on Friday welcomed the “definitive and complete departure” of French forces from Chad, which marks the end of France’s last foothold in the wider terrorist-hit Sahel region.
After a closed-door military ceremony a day earlier, Deby addressed Chadian forces and diplomats at an event in the capital, N’Djamena.
The handover of the Kossei base, the French army’s last such facility in the central African country, follows Chad’s surprise breaking off military cooperation with its former colonial ruler in late November.
“We are not breaking off our relationship with France, but we are ending the military dimension of this cooperation,” Deby said at the base where only the Chadian flag was flying.
Chad must build an “even stronger, better-equipped army” and “forge new alliances based on mutual respect and without losing sight of the demands of independence and sovereignty,” he added.
Soldiers and fighter aircraft from France have been stationed in Chad almost continuously since the country’s independence in 1960, helping to train the Chadian military.
The country had been a key link in France’s military presence in Africa.