IGOR GIELOW
SÃO PAULO, SP (FOLHAPRESS)
Russian security forces announced this Saturday (23) that they had arrested 11 suspects involved in the terrorist attack that killed at least 143 people the night before in Moscow.
Authorities say the number of victims is expected to rise. There are at least three children among the dead, and the city hall announced that it will pay compensation of R$160,000 to each family that lost a relative in the attack.
According to the head of the FSB (Federal Security Service), Alexander Bortnikov, four of the detainees were responsible for the shooting inside the Crocus City Hall concert hall, in the shopping center of the same name in a peripheral district 20 km from the center of the Russian capital.
They were arrested in the Bryansk region, 340 km southwest of Moscow. A deputy, Alexander Khinshtein, reported that they were in a Renault when they drove past a police roadblock. There was a chase, the car was stopped and two suspects fled into a forest, while the remaining suspects were arrested.
According to Khinshtein, in the end they were all detained and the police seized a pistol, an ammunition clip for assault rifles and passports from Tajikistan, a Muslim-majority republic in Central Asia that was part, with Russia, of the former Soviet Union (1922- 1991).
On Friday night (22), the terrorist group EI (Islamic State) claimed responsibility for the attack. According to the United States government, the attack was specifically promoted by the Afghan branch of the entity, known as EI-Khorasan.
In the Syrian civil war, the Russians intervened in 2015 in favor of the dictatorship allied with Bashar al-Assad, and began to harshly attack IS. They were responsible, as well as Western and Middle Eastern countries, for a campaign that ended the territorial dominance that the extremist group had over large areas of the Arab country and neighboring Iraq.
Vladimir Putin's government has a long history of conflict with Islamic fundamentalist groups. The leader, re-elected for another six years of government last Sunday (17), came to power as prime minister in 1999 determined to crush radical Muslim separatism in the Russian republic of Chechnya after a deadly wave of attacks in Moscow and other cities.
The success of the brutal campaign there enabled him, as interim president after Boris Ielstin's resignation at the turn of the year 2000, to be elected to the Kremlin for the first time. Afterwards, he faced several crises with Islamic terrorists.
This Friday's attack was the deadliest in history after an episode in 2004, when Chechen and Ingush terrorists took over a school in Beslan, North Ossetia. At the end of the police siege, 334 people died, including 156 children.
Moscow has not faced an attack of this scale since 2011, when 37 people died in an attack at Domodedovo international airport. The action triggered a trigger among Muscovites also because it brought echoes of the seizure of a theater in the center of the capital in 2002 by Chechens, whose clumsy police action ended with the death of 132 hostages, in addition to 40 terrorists.
Ukraine, a country invaded by Putin in 2022 and which had suffered the second largest air attack in the war on Friday, denied any involvement in the attack. Telegram channels, including state-owned ones, in any case celebrated the attack as retribution for Russian aggression against the country – this Saturday, Kiev said it had shot down 31 of 34 drones launched by the Russians.
Western governments, such as the US and France, corroborated the version of Ukrainian innocence, but the Russian Foreign Ministry criticized the rush, saying that the case must be investigated.
The all-powerful Nikolai Patruchev, secretary of Russia's National Security Council, stated that everyone involved in the case will be punished. Putin, however, has not yet personally commented on the episode.
Images of the attack, captured on cell phones of those present, went viral. They show the terrorists entering the venue and shooting at random at the audience waiting for a concert by the Soviet-era rock band Piknik.
There was a fire at the site, caused by two explosions – initially, the report was that they were bombs, but there is a version that it was rudimentary Molotov cocktails that caused the fire, visible from different parts of the Russian capital.
Opened in 2009, Crocus City Hall was created by the owner of the Crocus Group, the Azerbaijani oligarch Aras Agalarov, in honor of Muslim Magomaiev (1942-2008), the “Soviet Frank Sinatra” who was a friend and fellow countryman of the businessman. The venue hosted prominent international shows, such as Elton John and Lana del Rey. Ironically, Agalarov's family, linked to the Baku government, is Muslim.
The city has reinforced policing this Saturday. Police officers patrol metro stations and all roads surrounding the capital are blocked.
