Russia has detained the four gunmen and other suspects connected to the attack at a Moscow concert hall which killed more than 130 people on Friday. President Vladimir Putin is linking it to Ukraine, despite an ISIL affiliate in Afghanistan claiming responsibility.
Published On 24 Mar 2024
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Russia has lowered flags to half-mast for a day of mourning after scores of people were gunned down with automatic weapons at a rock concert outside Moscow in the deadliest attack inside Russia for two decades.
President Vladimir Putin declared a national day of mourning for Sunday after pledging to track down and punish all those behind the attack, in which 133 people were killed, including three children, and more than 150 injured. The death toll is likely to further rise.
“I express my deep, sincere condolences to all those who lost their loved ones,” Putin said in an address to the nation on Saturday, his first public comments on the attack. “The whole country and our entire people are grieving with you.”
ISIL (ISIS) armed group claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack, but Putin has not publicly mentioned the group in connection with the attackers, whom he said had been trying to escape to Ukraine. He asserted that some on “the Ukrainian side” had prepared to spirit them across the border.
Ukraine has repeatedly denied any role in the attack, which Putin also blamed on “international terrorism”.
People on Sunday laid flowers at Crocus City Hall, the 6,200-seat concert hall outside Moscow where four armed men burst in on Friday just before Soviet-era rock group Picnic was to perform its hit, Afraid of Nothing.
The men fired their automatic weapons in short bursts at terrified civilians who fell screaming in a hail of bullets.
It was the deadliest attack on Russian territory since the 2004 Beslan school siege, when attackers linked to a Muslim group took more than 1,000 people, including hundreds of children, hostage.
Governor of the Moscow region Andrei Vorobyov said on Sunday the rescue operation was completed and the search operation is still ongoing.
“Identification by relatives is ahead. In hospitals, doctors are fighting for the lives of 107 people,” he said.
Al Jazeera’s Yulia Shapavalova, reporting from outside the concert hall, said people have been bringing flowers, candles, stuffed animals and posters for a makeshift memorial outside the hall.
“We can see flags raised to half-staff on the Russian house of parliament and other buildings. People are shocked, they’re grieving… there are numerous memorials throughout Russia,” she said.
“The clearance of the rubble continues with rescue dogs looking for people under the rubble… the death toll could rise.”
Long lines formed in Moscow to donate blood. Blood banks said on Sunday they now had enough blood supplies for four to six months.
Countries worldwide have expressed horror at the attack and sent their condolences to the Russian people.
Following a Palm Sunday Mass at St Peter’s Square in Vatican City, Pope Francis sent prayers to victims of the attack.
“I assure my prayers for the victims of the cowardly terrorist attack carried out the other evening in Moscow,” the 87-year-old pope said.
Putin said 11 people had been detained, including the four gunmen, who fled the concert hall and made their way to the Bryansk region, about 340km (210 miles) southwest of Moscow.
“They tried to hide and moved towards Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the state border,” Putin said.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said the gunmen had contacts in Ukraine and were captured near the border.
Meduza, a Russian publication based in Latvia, confirmed the claims by Russian state officials that the suspects were headed for Ukraine, by geolocating the filming location of the reported arrest of one of the suspects.
According to footage provided by the FSB, officials arrested a 30-year-old near the town of Khatsun in Russia’s Bryansk region, located 14km (8.6 miles) from the Ukrainian border, Meduza reported on Saturday.
The suspects have been brought to Moscow and may appear in court later in the day, according to local news agencies.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it was typical of Putin and “other thugs” to seek to divert blame.
ISIL, which once sought control over swaths of Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for the attack, the group’s Amaq agency said on Telegram.
On Saturday night, ISIL released on its Telegram channels what it said was footage of the attack.
In footage published by Russian media and Telegram channels with close ties to the Kremlin, one of the suspects said he was offered money to carry out the attack.
“I shot people,” the suspect, his hands tied and his hair held by an interrogator, a black boot beneath his chin, said in poor and highly accented Russian.
When asked why, he said: “For money.” The man said he had been promised half a million roubles ($5,400).
One was shown answering questions through a Tajik translator.
The White House said the US government shared information with Russia early this month about a planned attack in Moscow and issued a public advisory to Americans in Russia on March 7. It said ISIL bore sole responsibility for the attack.
“There was no Ukrainian involvement whatsoever,” US National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Sunday any statement made by US authorities to vindicate Kyiv until the end of the probe into the attack should be considered as evidence.
Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov told the TASS news agency on Saturday the US did not pass any specific information through the Russian embassy in Washington about preparations for the attack.
“Nothing was passed,” the ambassador said. “No concrete information, nothing was transferred to us.”
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A roundup of some of the main events last week.
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Israeli protesters have paraglided over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in Caesarea with banners suggesting he bears responsibility for the October 7 attack.
Published On 24 Mar 2024
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Alex Cosh is an editor with the status-quo-allergic independent Canadian news upstart, The Maple.
Cosh is a young reporter with an old-style muckraker’s temperament. His bunkum antennae are tuned to detect and expose the state-sanctioned flimflam that much of Canada’s establishment media hand-deliver like obedient couriers.
So, while the big, corporate mastheads fell promptly and predictably in line behind Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s fulsome support for Israel’s plans to erase Gaza, Cosh has put his experience and dexterous skills to work, revealing Canada’s complicity in that ugly enterprise.
This has translated into a stream of stories detailing how military “aid” flows from Canada to Israel through private companies; what type of military “goods” are exported to Israel, often via the United States; and how Canada’s arms trade with Israel has grown exponentially over the past decade and is now worth tens of millions of dollars per year.
Cosh has also dissected the rhetorical shenanigans of senior government officials meant not only to deflect questions concerning the nature and extent of Canada’s military exports to Israel, but to deny and sow confusion about whether any permits had been approved since early October that may have helped render Gaza a barren, apocalyptic landscape.
Pressed by a coalition of arms-monitoring and peace groups, scores of enlightened Canadians, Cosh and other reporters, Trudeau and company belatedly and grudgingly admitted in late January that Canada had indeed authorised military exports to Israel after October 7.
Official Ottawa tried to blunt the stunning volte-face by suggesting that the permits were limited to “non-lethal equipment” – a meaningless bureaucratic concoction that has no legal and hence binding definition.
In February, Cosh challenged that exculpatory construct. He obtained export data showing that the Trudeau government had approved at least 28.5 million Canadian dollars ($21m) in new permits for military exports to Israel during the opening months of its killing rage in Gaza.
That figure beat the previous record of 26 million Canadian dollars ($19m) worth of weapons and equipment sold in 2021.
Some of the permits allowed for the sale of products from a category that includes “bombs, torpedoes, rockets, other explosive devices and charges and related equipment and accessories”.
By what cockeyed measure do any of those “goods” constitute “non-lethal equipment”?
Cosh’s sleuthing discovered that the permits had been issued quickly, with one processed within four days. The dates on which some of the permits were certified indicate, as well, that Trudeau’s apparatchiks gave the green light to new military exports as late as December 6 after warnings had been issued by genocide scholars and United Nations special rapporteurs that genocide in Gaza was imminent.
But the documents Cosh obtained failed to answer a critical question: How long were the permits valid for? This left open the possibility that some of the “goods” were still being shipped to Israel or will be in the future.
Cosh’s scoop reverberated in the House of Commons, with New Democrats and Green Party members pressing Foreign Minister Melanie Joly for answers about the scope, scale, and timing of Canada’s military exports to Israel.
Then, the leaks began – designed, I suspect, to staunch the disagreeable political fallout and burnish a damaged minister’s doddering image.
The first backroom plant was published on March 14. It quoted anonymous sources who claimed that Joly had stopped approving new permits for exports of “non-lethal” military goods on January 8 because of the “extremely fluid” situation in Gaza.
Describing genocide as an “extremely fluid” situation is an obscene first, even for career bureaucrats expert in nonsensical doublespeak.
On the same day, CBC/Radio-Canada reported that the federal government was “slow-walking” an application to permit a Canadian manufacturer to sell armoured patrol vehicles to Israel.
The implicit message: Joly was on the job.
Members of the pretend socialist party of Canada, the New Democrats, were not convinced. On March 18, they put forward a nonbinding motion in Parliament calling on Canada to “suspend all trade in military goods with Israel”.
Although nonbinding, had the motion been adopted, it would have amounted to a wholesale, two-way arms embargo.
Not surprisingly, that motion was gutted, with Trudeau’s Liberals only agreeing to “cease the further authorisation and transfer of arms exports to Israel”.
The emasculated, nonbinding motion passed with the government’s backing.
Cue the confusion, backlash and hysteria.
Foreign Minister Joly reached back to a 1970s tagline for a Coca-Cola ad and told the Toronto Star that the motion is the “real thing” – whatever that means.
Lackadaisical editors unfamiliar with the motion’s fine print, penned headlines announcing that Canada had imposed an arms embargo on Israel.
A few easily impressed “progressive” US Democrats shouted: Hurray! Meanwhile, a legion of easily upset Israeli politicians and editorial writers dismissed the motion as a performative stunt by a B-movie country with little, if any, influence to deter Israel from pursuing “total victory” in Gaza and beyond – whatever that means.
Oh, wait. The arms embargo might not be an embargo at all.
On March 20, Cosh wrote a long story pointing out that the military export permits authorised before January 8 will be allowed to proceed. The Trudeau government’s existing policy of pausing approvals of new applications for export permits – but not necessarily rejecting them – remains intact.
This was the government’s policy before the New Democrat’s disembowelled motion won the day in Parliament. The rub: Canadian military goods will carry on flowing to Israel.
New Democrats MP Heather McPherson confirmed the thrust of Cosh’s discerning analysis, telling The Maple that existing permits will not be subject to any changes; that could mean military exports worth tens of millions could be delivered to Israel.
To add lunacy to a failed arms “freeze”, Trudeau et al have not ruled out buying Israeli military hardware, including those flagged by human rights groups as being “tested on” Palestinian civilians.
In December, the Canadian military made public its eagerness to spend 43 million Canadian dollars ($31.6m) on an Israeli-made missile the occupation forces have strafed Gaza with yesterday and today.
Canada, the true north strong and free – and still complicit.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
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During a visit to Egypt, Antonio Guterres warns of the impact Israel’s months-long war on Gaza is having around the globe.
The only effective and efficient way to deliver heavy goods to meet Gaza’s humanitarian needs is by road and includes an exponential increase in commercial deliveries, says the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Speaking during a visit to Egypt on Sunday, Guterres also warned of the impact Israel’s months-long war on Gaza was having around the globe.
“The daily assault on the human dignity of Palestinians is creating a crisis of credibility for the international community,” he said in remarks following a visit to the gates of the besieged Palestinian territory at the Rafah border crossing on Saturday.
Guterres repeated his call for an immediate ceasefire to alleviate “the plight of Palestinian children, women and men struggling to survive the nightmare” in famine-threatened Gaza.
“Looking at Gaza, it almost appears that the four horsemen of war, famine, conquest and death are galloping across it,” he said. “The whole world recognises that it’s past time to silence the guns and ensure an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.”
The UN has repeatedly warned of famine in the Palestinian territory, particularly in the north, which has been largely cut off from aid deliveries.
Guterres said Palestinians in Gaza “desperately need what has been promised – a flood of aid”. “Not trickles. Not drops,” he added.
The Israeli government is under growing international pressure to ease its bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza, which the territory’s Ministry of Health says has killed at least 32,226 people in less than six months, most of them women and children.
The bombings began on October 7 after the Palestinian armed group, Hamas, led an unprecedented attack on Israel, killing about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli officials.
Israel has pledged to pursue its military campaign all the way to Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, where 1.5 million Palestinians have sought shelter, penned in by the Egyptian border.
Guterres, who also met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, called the Rafah border crossing and Egypt’s El Arish airport where assistance is sent “essential arteries for life-saving aid into Gaza”.
“But those arteries are clogged,” he said, with massive lines of trucks piled up on the Egyptian side, only trickling in as the humanitarian situation worsens.
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Ex-Foreign Minister Ivan Korcok and current parliament Speaker Peter Pellegrini to face off in April’s vote dominated by the Ukraine war.
Slovakia’s former pro-West Foreign Minister Ivan Korcok and current parliament Speaker Peter Pellegrini will face off in April’s presidential election run-off, according to the final results.
The liberal Korcok led with 42.44 percent backing with 99.9 percent of the vote counted, while former Prime Minister Pellegrini earned 37.07 percent, the Slovak Statistical Office said late on Saturday.
The result was expected by analysts as the 48-year-old Pellegrini and 59-year-old Korcok topped the opinion polls before the vote marked by deep divisions on the war in neighbouring Ukraine.
The presidential election is a chance for Prime Minister Robert Fico, whose views on Ukraine have angered critics for veering too close to Russia, to strengthen his grip on power.
President Zuzana Caputova, 50, who has been a fierce opponent of Fico, did not seek a new term. But the opposition forces want a counterbalance to Fico’s rule.
Korcok, a career diplomat who was a minister in a past government, will advance to a run-off on April 6 against Pellegrini, who heads the Hlas (Voice) party.
A Russian-leaning former Supreme Court chief, Stefan Harabin, gained the third most votes at just 11.75 percent, after getting support from a nationalist party that is also in the government coalition. His voters could help Pellegrini.
“I certainly have to speak to the tens of thousands of voters of the ruling coalition who disagree with where the government is pulling Slovakia,” Korcok told his supporters.
Fico and his ruling leftist Smer party won a parliamentary election last September with pledges to halt military aid to Ukraine and maintain support for people hit by price surges.
Pellegrini, a former member of Smer, was key in forming a coalition and said the first-round results showed a majority did not want a “liberal-right-progressive” president who would only be in conflict with the government.
“The majority in Slovakia expressed an interest in having a president who will defend the national state interests,” he said.
Presidents do not wield many executive powers but have a role in government and judicial appointments, can veto laws and shape public debate as the liberal Caputova often did.
Voters in the past have rejected giving ruling parties both the government and presidential offices, including Caputova’s win in 2019 when anticorruption sentiment hurt Fico’s party, which was in government then.
“This election will show whether mass protests that have taken place in Bratislava and other major cities in recent weeks are also supported by people who usually express their disapproval at the polling stations,” said Radoslav Stefancik, political analyst at the University of Economics in Bratislava.
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Children who were kidnapped in two separate abductions in northern Nigeria have been freed. On Friday the army rescued one group taken from Sokoto, while more than 130 students from Kaduna were released early on Sunday.
Published On 24 Mar 2024
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Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti and US professor Ian Lustick dissect Biden’s refusal to end the war in Gaza.
All of Israel’s modern wars have ended with US intervention, but the current war in Gaza has gone on for half a year because “Biden is a slow learner”, argues University of Pennsylvania political scientist Ian Lustick.
Israel needs an outside power to blame when it cannot achieve its aims. “That’s because the war aims are fundamentally political, and the military cannot achieve them,” says Lustick.
Lustick and Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti talk to host Steve Clemons about the current situation on the ground and the debate within the Democratic Party in the United States.
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The kidnapping in Kaduna state on March 7 was one of the biggest such attacks in years and prompted a national outcry over security.
More than 130 students abducted by gunmen from a school in Nigeria earlier this month have been released “unharmed” days before a ransom deadline, say officials.
Government spokesman Abdulaziz Abdulaziz told Al Jazeera on Sunday it “took a lot of backchannel engagement” to release the students abducted on March 7 in Kuriga, a dusty town in Kaduna state – the first mass kidnapping in Nigeria since 2021.
“[All] of them were released and all of them were fine,” he said, giving the official number of freed students at 137 – much lower than the figure of 286 students and one staff member in most media reports. He claimed the media reports were wrong but did not give further details.
Earlier on Sunday, Uba Sani, governor of the northwestern state of Kaduna, said in a statement the hostages were freed after “security operations” coordinated by the country’s national security adviser.
“We … thank all Nigerians who prayed fervently for the safe return of the school children. This is indeed a day of joy,” the governor said.
In the name of Allah the Beneficient, the Most Merciful, I wish to announce that our Kuriga school children have been released.
Our special appreciation goes to our dear President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR for prioritizing the safety and security of Nigerians and particularly… pic.twitter.com/yGauTZt9BN
— Senator Uba Sani (@ubasanius) March 24, 2024
“The Nigerian Army also deserves special commendation for showing that with courage, determination and commitment, criminal elements can be degraded and security restored in our communities,” Sani added in a statement.
Abductions of students from schools in Nigeria by rampaging armed groups with no ideological affiliation are common. On March 9, 15 students were kidnapped from a school in the village of Gidan Bakuso in Sokoto state while at least 87 people, including women, were taken captives in Kajuru area of Kaduna on March 18.
In recent years, the abductions have been concentrated in the country’s northwestern and central regions, where dozens of armed groups often target villagers and travellers for ransom, forcing families and communities to sell land, cattle and grain to secure their loved ones’ release – or in some cases, crowdfunding on social media sites.
The Kaduna gunmen last week demanded a total of 1 billion naira ($680,000) for the release of the children and staff and vowed to kill the victims if the payments were not made within 20 days. But Nigerian President Bola Tinubu said he would “not pay a dime” after the practice was outlawed in 2022 in a bid to clamp down on the attackers. Ransom payers face a 15-year sentence.
Abductions at Nigerian schools were first carried out by armed group Boko Haram, which seized 276 students from a girls’ school in Chibok in northeastern Borno state in 2014. Some of the girls have never been released, most of them forcefully married to the fighters.
In another mass kidnapping in July 2021, gunmen took more than 150 students in a raid. The students were reunited months later with their families after they paid ransoms.
A total of some 1,400 children have been abducted since 2014.
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