Russia's response to the deadly
Moscow concert
shooting that killed at least 60 and injured over 145 will be "extreme violence", an expert has warmed. Assailants burst into a large concert hall in Moscow on Friday and sprayed the crowd with gunfire, killing over 60 people, injuring more than 100, and setting
fire to the venue in a brazen attack. The
Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on affiliated channels on
Social Media. A U.S. intelligence official revealed that U.S. intelligence agencies had learned the group’s branch in
Afghanistan was planning an attack in Moscow and shared the information with
Russian officials. READ MORE: 'Three children' among 60 dead after bloodbath Moscow concert hall shooting Ambulances rushed to the scene of the shooting The attack, which left the concert hall in flames with a collapsing roof, was the deadliest in
Russia in years and came as the country’s war in
Ukraine dragged into a third year. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin called the raid a “huge tragedy.” The
Kremlin said Putin was informed minutes after the assailants burst into Crocus City Hall, a large
music venue on Moscow’s western edge that can accommodate 6,200 people. Matthew Sussex, an expert on Russia and an associate professor at the
Australian National University, told
BBC News Russia's response to the attack will be "extreme violence" - pointing to the aftermath of the 2002 Moscow theatre siege and 2004 Beslan school siege. Medics and law enforcement officers are seen outside the Crocus City Hall concert hall following the shooting ( Image: Moskva News Agency/AFP via Getty) He said: "Perhaps it's not so important who carried out the attacks but who the Russian government decides is to blame and who they are going to respond against. Russia has a long history of treating many of the people on its own territory who are Muslims not particularly well." "We have had two wars in Chechnya... the second 1999 to 2006 was something of a radicalised war in which you did have people who went on to fight with Islamic State against the Russian government. A major fire spread through the building ( Image: AFP via Getty Images) "Since then, Russia's activities in
Syria have made Islamic State see the Russian government as a primary threat." The attack took place as crowds gathered for a performance by the Russian rock band Picnic. The Investigative Committee, the top state criminal investigation agency, reported early Saturday that more than 60 people were killed. Health authorities released a list of 145 injured — 115 of them hospitalised, including five children. Some Russian news reports suggested more victims could have been trapped by the blaze that erupted after the assailants threw explosives. Video showed the building on fire, with a huge cloud of smoke rising through the night sky. The street was lit up by the blinking blue lights of dozens of firetrucks, ambulances and other emergency vehicles, as fire helicopters buzzed overhead to dump water on the blaze that took hours to contain.