White House National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said: “ISIS (or ISIS) is solely responsible for this attack. There is no connection with Ukraine."
Smoke rises above the Crocus City Hall concert venue in Moscow, Russia, March 22, 3. Photo: REUTERS
US Vice President Kamala Harris in an interview with ABC News' "This Week" broadcast on Sunday also said that there was no evidence that Ukraine was involved. “ISIS-K is really responsible for what happened,” she said.
ISIS-K is a Sunni Muslim militant group that emerged from Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province around 2015 and hopes to establish a hardline Islamic caliphate spanning India, Iran and Central Asia. This group has claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack in Moscow.
The Islamic State group wrote on Telegram on Saturday that the attack was “carried out by four IS fighters armed with machine guns, pistols, knives and bombs,” as part of a “fierce war” with “countries against Islam”.
According to the SITE intelligence group, a video about a minute and a half long that appears to have been shot by gunmen was posted on social media accounts commonly used by the Islamic State.
Mr Putin has vowed to punish those behind the “barbaric terrorist attack” – but in his only public speech on the massacre, he did not mention IS claims of responsibility.
Instead, he said four gunmen who tried to flee to Ukraine were arrested. “They tried to escape and are going towards Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a door has been prepared for them from the Ukrainian side,” he said in a nationally televised address on Saturday. to cross national borders”.
Kiev has strongly denied any connection, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accusing Russia of trying to shift the blame.
Mai Anh (according to Reuters)
