MOSCOW, March 25 (Reuters) - France on Monday joined the United States in saying intelligence indicated Islamic State was responsible for an attack on a concert hall outside Moscow that killed 137 people, while Russia continued to suggest that Ukraine was to blame.
In the
deadliest attack inside Russia for two decades, four men burst into the Crocus City Hall on Friday night, spraying bullets during a concert by the Soviet-era rock group Picnic. Alongside the dead, 182 people were wounded.
Four men of Tajik origin were remanded in custody on terrorism charges at Moscow's Basmanny district court on suspicion of carrying out the attack. Three others, also of Tajik origin, were remanded in custody on suspicion of complicity.
Islamic State has said it was responsible for the attack, a claim that the United States has publicly said it
believes. The hardline Islamist militant group has released what it says is footage from the massacre. U.S. officials said they had
warned Russia this month of intelligence about an imminent attack.
French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters: "The information available to us ... as well as to our main partners, indicates indeed that it was an entity of the Islamic State that instigated this attack."
"This group also tried to commit several actions on our own soil," he said during a visit to French Guiana.
U.S. officials say their intelligence indicates that an Afghan affiliate,
Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), was responsible.
PUTIN HAS NOT MENTIONED ISLAMIC STATE
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 President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has accused Putin of seeking to divert blame.
Macron said that France had offered cooperation to help find the culprits, adding: "I think it would be both cynical and counterproductive for Russia itself and the security of its citizens to use this context to try and turn it against Ukraine."
The White House also dismissed Russian suggestions that the attack was linked to Ukraine. "This is just more Kremlin propaganda," White House spokesman John Kirby said in Washington.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova earlier questioned the U.S. assertions.
Writing in the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, she said the United States was evoking the "bogeyman" of Islamic State to cover its "wards" in Kyiv, and reminded readers that Washington had supported the mujahideen fighters who fought Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia could not comment on the Islamic State claim while the investigation continued, and would not comment on the U.S. intelligence, saying it was sensitive information.
Since the attack, hundreds of Russians have laid flowers outside the Crocus City Hall to remember the victims.
Picnic, the band who had been due to perform on Friday, will stage a memorial concert in St. Petersburg on Wednesday together with a symphony orchestra in aid of the victims, the city's Oktyabrskiy concert hall announced.
VIDEO SHOWS PART OF SUSPECT'S EAR BEING CUT OFF
Putin said 11 people had been detained, including the four
suspected gunmen, opens new tab, who he said had made their way to the Bryansk region, about 340 km (210 miles) southwest of Moscow, to try to slip into Ukraine.
Unverified videos of their interrogations circulated on social media. One was shown having part of his ear cut off and stuffed into his mouth.
One man, Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, leaned against the glass cage as the terrorism charge was read out. Saidakrami Rachabalizoda, his ear in bandages, remained sitting.
Muhammadsobir Fayzov appeared in hospital clothes in a wheelchair, his face covered in cuts. Shamsiddin Fariduni stood, his face bruised.
Peskov declined to answer a journalist's question about whether they had been tortured.
The same court also remanded in custody two more Tajik natives - father and son Isroil and Aminchon Islomov - and another son, Dilovar, who has Russian citizenship, the Interfax news agency reported.
The federal Investigative Committee said it believed Aminchon and Dilovar had been recruited by Fariduni.
Russian media reported that Dilovar had owned a car used by the attackers. Aminchon asserted his innocence, Interfax said.
Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, triggering a major war after eight years of conflict in eastern Ukraine between Ukrainian forces on one side and pro-Russian Ukrainians and Russian proxies on the other.
The U.S. and its European allies have supported Ukraine, extending billions of dollars of money, weapons and intelligence in a bid to defeat Russian forces.
