This is the harrowing moment a victim of one of the worst in history manages to make a narrow escape from A in , where fans were excitedly waiting for the rock band Picnic to perform. What seemed like "Fireworks" turned out to be a horrifying attack by four heavily-armed men who stormed into the hall around 9.45pm and started randomly at the crowd with their automatic weapons. The attackers also threw homemade Molotov cocktails at the people, causing terrible burns and setting the building on . The death toll is still rising, with 115 people confirmed dead so far. Four of the attackers were among 11 people arrested on Saturday, according to officials. Initially, a
Russian authority blamed
Ukraine for the attack, but they strongly denied it. Now, the 'ISIS K' faction of the
Islamic State has claimed responsibility. Despite the chaos, some people managed to escape without harm. One woman even recorded her hair-raising escape in a video. Around 9.45pm local time, at least four people with automatic weapons and explosives in their backpacks stormed the city hall in the
Moscow Oblast city of Krasnogorsk. A terrified woman, who's been anonymized, took shaky footage of people screaming and running away from the sound of gunfire. People tried to get away from the shooters and the fires caused by their bombs by running out of the main entrance or through the basement. Some people were stuck on the upper floors because of the fire. Some of those in the main hall couldn't get out because the doors were blocked. One
Gunman was spotted firing all the bullets from their machine gun into the crowd. Some people in the video looked like they were too scared to move. One person was sitting on the floor, rocking back and forth. A woman in a red hood covered her ears as more bombs went off. When the hallways got crowded with people trying to escape, the woman stopped by a TV screen that showed what was happening inside the auditorium. She finally got out of the city hall through the parking area and looked back at the building. You can hear the sirens of emergency vehicles coming to help. The
fire started because of homemade bombs called Molotov cocktails. These are glass bottles filled with something that can catch on fire easily. This made the building turn into a big fire. "They threw some petrol bombs, everything started burning. We were led out towards an exit," one witness said. Over 50 fire trucks got to the place on Friday night, local news reported. They waited to fight the fire until the scary men with guns were not a threat anymore. Smoke was coming up from the building as fires made the roof fall in. The glass on the top two floors broke and the front of the building caught on fire. Spetsnaz, Russian special forces, rushed into the building. They went past people who had died to catch the bad guys with guns and bombs. The emergency was dubbed "Zarya Plan" and meant the Spetsnaz soldiers were deployed to look for the gunmen. A person said it was like a big cleanup as the special teams made it safe for the fire people to get inside. About 70% of the seats were filled, someone guessed. First, they said 12 people were killed, then it was 40, then 62 and 93, and by Saturday morning, the figure stood at 115. Officials think more deaths will come as they keep looking. More than 140 people were injured and that includes some kids, according to reports.
Russia was quick to point the finger at Ukraine for planning the attack, which Ukrainian officials denied. Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeev issued a harsh warning to Kyiv. "Let's give the civilian population of Ukraine 48 hours to leave the cities and finally end this war with the victorious defeat of the enemy," he shared on Telegram. "Using all forces and means." Even former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev gave a chilling "death for death" speech. He stated: "If it is established that these terrorists are of the Kyiv regime, it is impossible to deal with them and their ideological inspires differently." The Islamic State declared it was them targeting specifically "Christians", according to a statement posted on the ISIS-affiliated news agency Amaq on Telegram. US officials confirmed they believe that
ISIS was indeed behind the attack, soon after the group claimed responsibility, reports the
New York Times. Only weeks before, Russia's FSB security agency shared that it had stopped an ISIS plan to attack a synagogue in Moscow. This information became public knowledge after US intelligence agencies discovered that the Afghan branch of ISIS was thinking about an attack in Moscow.