An expert has told Sky News the attack on a Moscow concert hall is consistent with Islamic State.
Sky News has analysed IS footage of the attack and an image released by the militant group and spoken to experts about what the materials reveal.
Aaron Zelin, an expert on jihadist groups and senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said “the attack itself, the type of people involved, the style of the attack and the media campaign” is all “Islamic State modus operandi”.
IS has said it carried out the shooting massacre, and US officials have said their intelligence indicates that an Afghan affiliate, Islamic State Khorasan, or IS-K, was responsible. However, Vladimir Putin has not publicly mentioned IS in connection with the assailants.
The video
A day after the attack, IS released a video of the assailants inside Crocus Hall via the militant group’s Amaq news agency which shows a number of gunmen storming the building and attacking people.
The attackers are seen holding guns and also knives. More than 130 people were killed and over 180 others were injured on Friday night.
Mr Zelin said the type of weapons used in the attack are consistent with IS methods. “We’ve seen in past attacks they shoot people and stab people… They have as many weapons on them as possible so they can inflict as much damage on them as possible.
“So, if they end up using all their bullets and cartridges or AK-47s they will still have a knife to stab.”
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While IS has also used other methods in previous attacks, including suicide attacks, another expert said that it would likely be easier to “procure firearms in Russia”.
Dr Antonio Giustozzi, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said the way IS carries out attacks “depends on the kind of weapons they can obtain”.
“So explosives, especially plastic explosives that you can use for suicide belts is not so easy to procure…. It’s probably easier to procure firearms in Russia.” He added the “exact choice of weapons can be dictated by what’s available on the black market”.
Clothing worn by suspects match IS image
IS also released an earlier image which they say shows some of the people behind the Moscow attack. It shows four people with blurred faces in front of an IS flag.
Mr Zelin said images “pledging allegiance to the leader of IS” are part of the group’s media campaign.
Sky News has analysed and compared the IS image to subsequent interrogation videos and images by Russian authorities and other photos later taken of the four suspects in court. We used a facial recognition tool and analysed the clothing worn by the suspects.
Clothing worn by three of the people seen in the IS image matches those seen in other videos and images appearing in the aftermath of the attack.
We brightened the IS image above and matched details on the T-shirts worn by three of the people – to other images and videos on Telegram showing them being interrogated by Russian authorities.
The detailing of a logo on a T-shirt worn by one of the suspects in the image below appears blurred in the IS image (left), visible from a screenshot of the IS video (centre) and again on the T-shirt in an aftermath video (right).
The suspects have been named as Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, Saidakrami Murodali Rachabalizoda, Muhammadsobir Fayzov and Shamsidin Fariduni.
We cross referenced the aftermath imagery and videos to photos of the four suspects pictured in court using an AI facial recognition tool which confirmed they matched.
Mr Zelin said that while not all IS attacks are the same, there is a consistency to the group’s media campaign.
He explained they often include a line to first claim responsibility, followed by a longer statement, then “photographic evidence of the individuals pledging allegiance to the leader of IS”, followed by some form of video of the attack or to do with the attack.
“It’s definitely a template they use, part of it is to keep them in the news for a longer time,” he added.
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Terrror suspects appear with face injuries
Claiming responsibility for attack
Experts are convinced no other group is responsible.
Dr Giustozzi said: “This is about, intimidating, spreading terror and primarily the recruitment and funding for the militant group.”
Mr Zelin said in the aftermath of attack, he had seen in their “different types of propaganda in a number of different languages that they are trying to recruit people”.
Russia’s president Vladimir Putin has not publicly mentioned Islamic State in connection with the assailants, who he said had been trying to flee to Ukraine with help from “the Ukrainian side”.
Ukraine has denied any role and Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Putin of seeking to divert blame.
Washington said it had warned Russia this month of an imminent attack. A source familiar with this intelligence said it was based on interceptions of “chatter” among IS-K militants.
A helicopter carrying Iran’s president crashed during bad weather on Sunday.
But who is Ebrahim Raisi – a leader who faces sanctions from the US and other nations over his involvement in the mass execution of prisoners in 1988.
The president, 63, who was travelling alongside the foreign minister and two other key Iranian figures when their helicopter crashed, had been travelling across the far northwest of Iran following a visit to Azerbaijan.
Mr Raisi is a hardliner and former head of the judiciary who some have suggested could one day replace Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Because of his part in the sentencing of thousands of prisoners of conscience to death back in the 1980s, he was nicknamed the Butcher of Tehranas he sat on the so-called Death Panel, for which he was then sanctioned by the US.
Both a revered and a controversial figure, Mr Raisi supported the country’s security services as they cracked down on all dissent, including in the aftermath of the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini – the woman who died after she was arrested for allegedly not wearing her hijab properly – and the nationwide protests that followed.
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The months-long security crackdown killed more than 500 people and saw over 22,000 detained.
In March, a United Nations investigative panel found that Iranwas responsible for the “physical violence” that led to Ms Amini’s death after her arrest for not wearing a hijab, or headscarf, to the liking of authorities.
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The president also supported Iran’s unprecedented decision in April to launch a drone and missile attack on Israel amid its war with Hamas, the ruling militant group in Gaza responsible for the 7 October attacks which saw 1,200 people killed in southern Israel.
Involvement in mass executions
Mr Raisi is sanctioned by the US in part over his involvement in the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 at the end of the bloody Iran-Iraq war.
Under the president, Iran now enriches uranium at nearly weapons-grade levels and hampers international inspections.
Iran has armed Russia in its war on Ukraineand has continued arming proxy groups in the Middle East, such as Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
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He successfully ran for the presidency back in August 2021 in a vote that got the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history as all of his potentially prominent opponents were barred from running under Iran’s vetting system.
A presidency run in 2017 saw him lose to Hassan Rouhani, the relatively moderate cleric who as president reached Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
‘Very involved in anything’
Alistair Bunkall, Sky News’s Middle East correspondent, said the president is “a major figure in Iranian political and religious society” but “he’s not universally popular by any means” as his administration has seen a series of protests in the past few years against his and the government’s “hardline attitude”.
Mr Raisi is nonetheless “considered one of the two frontrunners to potentially take over” the Iranian regime when the current supreme leader dies, Bunkall said.
He added the president would have been “instrumental” in many of Iran’s activities in the region as he “would’ve been very involved in anything particularly what has been happening in Israel and the surrounding areas like Lebanon and Gaza and the Houthis over the last seven and a bit months”.
A man who launched the first direct attack on Israel in his country’s history and a hardliner on whose watch hundreds of Iranians have been killed in the brutal repression of recent women-led protests, Mr Raisi has a huge amount of blood on his hands.
His fearsome reputation goes back to the 1980s – a period that earned him the dubious soubriquet the Butcher of Tehran.
He sat on the so-called Death Panel of four Islamic judges who sentenced thousands of Iranian prisoners of conscience to their deaths during the purge of 1988.
Mr Raisi has personally been involved in two of the darkest periods of Iranian repression. And he was seen as one of the favourite contenders to replace the elderly and ailing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
His accession to that role would have guaranteed years more of the same… and years more meddling abroad.
With Mr Raisi as president, Iranhas engaged in more and more adventurous interventions beyond its borders.
With him in charge Iran has helped Houthis menace international shipping in the Red Sea; helped Hezbollah engage Israelin a seven-month duel over its northern border; aided militia in Iraq to attack, and in some cases kill, American soldiers; and helped Hamas fight its own war against the Jewish state.
After two years of unrest, economic failure and stuttering recovery from the pandemic, Iran is divided and weakened.
Its government has lost much of its credibility and support because of the atrocities it has meted out to its women.
Few outside the regime and its ranks of ardent followers will mourn a man who has overseen the death, incarceration or torture of so many.
Iranians may dare yearn for less repressive times without him. Outsiders will hope for a less troublesome Iran.
Ukrainian forces have launched “co-ordinated strikes” against an airbase in southern Russia that is used to unleash glide bomb attacks on Ukraine, a military source has said.
The operation, which took place overnight on Saturday, had “significantly reduced” Moscow’s ability to use glide bombs against frontline Ukrainian positions, according to the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Ukrainian military source claimed this would “seriously impact” a Russian attempt to advance on the battleground town of Chasiv Yar, in the east of Ukraine.
The strikes targeted the Kushchyovskaya airbase in Krasnodar Krai, which is in the North Caucasus region in southern Russia, the source said.
The source did not elaborate on what form the “co-ordinated strikes” took.
It was not possible independently to verify the claims.
The source said a number of aircraft – including fighter jets such as the SU-27, SU-34 and SU-35 – are based at the airfield. They are capable of launching munitions fitted with glide bomb technology that pose a huge threat to Ukrainian troops and civilians.
“The degradation of this airfield and the capability it holds will mean that Russia’s ability to bomb Ukrainian troops on the front line is significantly reduced,” the source said.
Explaining why Ukraine chose to target the airfield, the source said that it is used to conduct daily strikes on Ukrainian frontline positions, including with glide bombs.
“This airbase and others are used to launch between 100-150 sorties per day, of which a significant number are launching munitions along the frontline positions concentrated around Chasiv Yar,” the source said.
Russia has been deploying glide bombs against Ukrainian positions since early 2023.
“These glide bombs were vital in the seizure of Avdiivka and are currently being used heavily in Chasiv Yar. They allow the Russian aircraft to release their bombs further away from the target so they are at less risk from Ukrainian air defence.”