Deaths and injuries have been reported after a gun attack at a concert hall near Moscow, Russian media say.
At least four people dressed in camouflage opened fire at the Crocus City Hall, social media video verified by the BBC shows.
Video obtained by Reuters news agency shows a large blaze and smoke rising from the hall.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry described the incident as a “terrorist attack”. Specialist police are at the scene
Footage on social media showed gunmen inside the concert hall while state media reported that some people were still inside.
Tass news agency reported a third of the concert venue is on fire and the roof is almost completely ablaze.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called on the international community to condemn the incident, which it called “a monstrous crime”.
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the images of the shooting were “horrible and hard to watch”.
I’m not gonna beat up on Moscow for that one. Probably wasn’t the best handling, but they had no incentive to mishandle it. It was a difficult hostage situation, and it could have also played out worse, as there were bombs in the theater.
It’s hard to estimate an exact amount of gas that would incapacitate one person without killing someone else.
I’d like to think that we’d have done better than kill off a ton of the hostages in a similar situation, but we’ve also dicked up some hostage situations too, even where we’ve got lots of resources and time to plan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Eagle_Claw
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege
Waco wasn’t even a hostage situation. We just killed a bunch of weird religious people.