MOSCOW: Russian authorities arrested the four people suspected of taking part in the attack on a suburban Moscow concert hall that killed at least 133 people and believe they were headed to Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin said Saturday during an address to the nation.
Kyiv, meanwhile, strongly denied any involvement in Friday’s attack on the Crocus City Hall music venue in Krasnogorsk, which the Daesh group’s affiliate in Afghanistan claimed responsibility for in a statement posted on social media channels linked to the group. Kyiv accused Putin and other Russian politicians of falsely linking Ukraine to the assault in order to stoke fervor in Russia’s war in Ukraine, which recently entered its third year.
A US intelligence official told The Associated Press that US agencies had confirmed that IS was responsible for the attack.
Putin said authorities have detained a total of 11 people in the attack, which also injured scores of concertgoers and left the venue a smoldering ruin. He called it “a bloody, barbaric terrorist act” and said Russian authorities captured the four suspected gunmen as they were trying to escape to Ukraine through a “window” prepared for them on the Ukrainian side of the border.
Putin also said that additional security measures have been imposed throughout Russia, and he declared Sunday to be a day of mourning.
Investigators on Saturday were combing through the charred wreckage of the hall for more victims, and the authorities said the death toll could still rise. Hundreds of people stood in line in Moscow early Saturday to donate blood and plasma, Russia’s health ministry said.
“We faced not just a thoroughly and cynically prepared terror attack, but a well-prepared and organized mass murder of peaceful innocent people,” Putin said.
The attack, which was the deadliest in Russia in years, came just days after Putin cemented his grip on power in a highly orchestrated electoral landslide and as the war in Ukraine drags on.
Some Russian lawmakers pointed the finger at Ukraine immediately after the attack. But Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, denied any involvement.
“Ukraine has never resorted to the use of terrorist methods,” he posted on X. “Everything in this war will be decided only on the battlefield.”
Ukraine’s foreign ministry accused Moscow of using the attack to try to stoke fervor for its war efforts.
“We consider such accusations to be a planned provocation by the Kremlin to further fuel anti-Ukrainian hysteria in Russian society, create conditions for increased mobilization of Russian citizens to participate in the criminal aggression against our country and discredit Ukraine in the eyes of the international community,” the ministry said in a statement.
Images shared by Russian state media Saturday showed a fleet of emergency vehicles still gathered outside the ruins of Crocus City Hall, which could hold more than 6,000 people and has hosted many big events, including the 2013 Miss Universe beauty pageant that featured Donald Trump and other VIPs.
Videos posted online showed gunmen in the venue shooting civilians at point-blank range. Russian news reports cited authorities and witnesses as saying the attackers threw explosive devices that started the fire. The roof of the theater, where crowds had gathered for a performance by the Russian rock band Picnic, collapsed early Saturday as firefighters spent hours fighting the blaze.
In a statement posted by its Aamaq news agency, the IS’s Afghanistan affiliate said it had attacked a large gathering of “Christians” in Krasnogorsk.
A US intelligence official told the AP that American intelligence agencies had gathered information in recent weeks that the IS branch was planning an attack in Moscow, and that US officials had privately shared the intelligence earlier this month with Russian officials.
The official was briefed on the matter but was not authorized to publicly discuss the intelligence information and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
Messages of outrage, shock and support for the victims and their families have streamed in from around the world.
On Friday, the UN Security Council condemned “the heinous and cowardly terrorist attack” and underlined the need for the perpetrators to be held accountable. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also condemned the terrorist attack “in the strongest possible terms,” his spokesman said.
Putin, who extended his grip on Russia for another six years in this week’s presidential vote after a sweeping crackdown on dissent, had publicly denounced the Western warnings of a potential terrorist attack 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.
In October 2015, a bomb planted by IS downed a Russian passenger plane over Sinai, killing all 224 people on board, most of them Russian vacation-goers returning from Egypt. The group, which operates mainly in Syria and Iraq but also in Afghanistan and Africa, also has claimed several attacks in Russia’s volatile Caucasus and other regions in the past years. It recruited fighters from Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union.
Putin says gunmen in Moscow attack tried to escape to Ukraine, Kyiv denies involvement
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Putin says gunmen in Moscow attack tried to escape to Ukraine, Kyiv denies involvement
- Daesh claimed responsibility for the attack, deadliest in Russia since Beslan school siege in 2004
- Authorities detain total of 11 people after the attack, which killed 133
Trump says he will speak with Russia’s Putin
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
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
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
- “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
- 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.
