A video apparently shot by gunmen who carried out the Moscow concert hall attack has been put up on social media accounts typically used by ISIS, according to SITE Intelligence Group.
According to SITE, the video appeared on a Telegram account belonging to Amaq, the news arm of Islamic State.
The video shows several armed men armed with assault rifles and knives at the lobby of the Crocus City Hall concert venue in Krasnogorsk, northwest of the Russian capital.
The video also shows numerous bodies on the ground after gunmen fire indiscriminately.
Meanwhile, Russian president Vladimir Putin claimed they were captured while fleeing to Ukraine.
Putin said authorities detained a total of 11 people in the attack, which also wounded more than 100. He called it “a bloody, barbaric terrorist act” and said Russian authorities captured the four suspects as they were trying to escape to Ukraine through a “window” prepared for them on the Ukrainian side of the border.
Russian media broadcast videos that apparently showed the detention and interrogation of the suspects, including one who told the cameras he was approached by an unidentified assistant to an Islamic preacher via a messaging app and paid to take part in the raid.
Russian news reports identified the gunmen as citizens of Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia that is predominantly Muslim and borders Afghanistan. Up to 1.5 million Tajiks have worked in Russia and many have Russian citizenship.
Tajikistan’s foreign ministry, which denied initial Russian media reports that mentioned several other Tajiks allegedly involved in the raid, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the arrests.
Many Russian hard-liners called for a crackdown on Tajik migrants, but Putin appeared to reject the idea, saying “no force will be able to sow the poisonous seeds of discord, panic or disunity in our multi-ethnic society.
With inputs from AP
