FBI warned Russia of terrorist attack on Crocus City Hall – WP

The US government notified the Russian authorities not only about the threat of a terrorist attack, but even precisely indicated that the attack could take place on the Crocus City Hall shopping center in the Moscow region.

This was reported by The Washington Post.

American officials told the publication that more than two weeks before the tragedy, Moscow was informed that this concert venue was a potential target of terrorists.

"The US identification of the Crocus concert hall as a potential target — a fact that has not been previously reported — raises new questions about why Russian authorities failed to take stronger measures to protect the venue, where gunmen killed more than 140 people and set fire to the building," the newspaper writes.

Teenager Islam Khalilov, who worked as a cloakroom attendant at the concert hall, helped people evacuate the building that night. In an interview, he said that the staff had been warned about the possibility of a terrorist attack.

The second likely target of the terrorists was a synagogue in the Russian capital. The very next day after the warning, the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation announced that an attack by Islamic State militants on a synagogue in Moscow had been prevented.

"The high degree of specificity conveyed in the warning underscores Washington’s confidence that the Islamic State was preparing an attack that threatened large numbers of civilians, and it directly contradicts Moscow’s claims that the US warnings were too general to help preempt the assault," the newspaper writes.

As a reminder, on the evening of March 22, several armed men opened fire at the Crocus City Hall concert hall in Krasnogorsk, near Moscow. According to the latest Russian data, 143 people died as a result of the attack.

Author – Anastasiya Glotova, 03/04/2024