ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Saturday Pakistan stood with Russia after a shooting rampage killed 115 people at a concert hall near Moscow on Friday.
Russia has said it has arrested 11 people including four suspected gunmen in connection with the attack for which Daesh has claimed responsibility.
In the deadliest attack in Russia since the 2004 Beslan school siege, gunmen sprayed civilians with bullets just before Soviet-era rock group “Picnic” was to perform to a full house at the 6,200-seat the Crocus City Hall just west of the capital.
“I strongly condemn the heinous attack in Moscow last night that has resulted in the loss of many precious lives,” Sharif said on X. “My heartfelt condolences to families of the victims. Pakistan stands with Russia at this difficult time.”
The United States has intelligence confirming Daesh’s claim of responsibility for the shooting, a US official told Reuters on Friday night. The official said Washington had warned Moscow in recent weeks of the possibility of an attack.
“We did warn the Russians appropriately,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, without providing any additional details.
The Kremlin said Russia’s FSB security service chief Alexander Bortnikov had reported to President Vladimir Putin that those detained included “four terrorists” and that the service was working to identify their accomplices.
Russian news agency Interfax quoted the FSB security service as saying the four suspected gunmen had been arrested while heading to the Ukrainian border, and that they had contacts in Ukraine. It said they were being transferred to Moscow.
Russia has not made public any evidence of a Ukrainian connection. Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said on Friday that Kyiv had nothing to do with Friday’s attack.
The attack on Crocus City Hall, about 20 km (12 miles) from the Kremlin, comes just two weeks after the US embassy in Russia warned that “extremists” had imminent plans for an attack in Moscow. Hours before the embassy warning, the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation said it had foiled an attack on a Moscow synagogue by Daesh’s affiliate in Afghanistan, known as Daesh-Khorasan or Daesh-K, which seeks a caliphate across Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Iran.
Putin changed the course of the Syrian civil war by intervening in 2015, supporting President Bashar Assad against the opposition and Daesh.
In the 2004 Beslan school siege, militants took more than 1,000 people, including hundreds of children, hostage.
With inputs from Reuters
