The Russian security services (FSB) announced Monday that the people arrested the day before in Dagestan and accused of preparing an attack are linked to the perpetrators of the recent deadly attack on a concert hall near Moscow.
The National Anti-Terrorism Committee (NAK) reported on Sunday the arrest in Makhachkala and Kaspiïsk in the Russian Caucasus of three people who planned to “commit a series of terrorist crimes”, ten days after the attack on Crocus City Hall which left least 144 dead.
The Russian security services, which reported four people arrested on Sunday, clarified on Monday that these foreign citizens “were preparing a terrorist act in public places in Kaspiïsk”, a town located near the capital of Dagestan, an unstable Russian republic of Caucasus, predominantly Muslim.
An attack claimed by ISIS
They were arrested in possession of an improvised explosive device and automatic weapons, according to the FSB. The FSB also claimed that those arrested were “directly involved in financing and providing terrorist means to the perpetrators of the terrorist act committed on March 22, 2024” at Crocus City Hall.
The attack was claimed by the jihadist organization Islamic State, although Russian authorities persist in seeing a Ukrainian lead. Twelve people were arrested after this massacre, including the four suspected attackers who are from Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia where ISIS is active.
Placement in pre-trial detention of a tenth suspect
On Monday, investigators requested the provisional detention of a tenth suspect among these 12 people arrested, a certain Iakoubdjoni Ioussoufzody. This person is accused of “terrorism” and of having “transferred money to an accomplice” a few days before the attack in order to “ensure the accommodation of terrorists”.
Friday evening, the FSB also announced that it had arrested three “nationals of a Central Asian country” who were planning a bomb attack in southwest Russia.