THE Russian security service FSB announced today that the suspects arrested yesterday Sunday in Dagestan, in the Russian Caucasus, and accused of planning an attack are also linked to the perpetrators of the March 22 concert hall attack near Moscow.

The National Anti-Terrorism Committee (NAK) yesterday announced the arrest in Makhachkala and Kaspiysk in Dagestan of three people who were planning to “commit a series of terrorist crimes”, ten days after the Crocus City Hall attack, which killed 144 people.

In clarifications made today, the FSB noted that these individuals, foreign nationals, “they were preparing a terrorist act in public places in Caspian Sea”a city located near the capital of Dagestan, a predominantly Muslim Russian republic in the Caucasus, which is rife with instability.

The NAK had announced the arrest of three people yesterday, but the FSB said today that four had been arrested. The people arrested were in possession of an improvised explosive device and automatic weapons.

The FSB also clarified today that those arrested were “directly involved in the financing and provision of equipment and terrorist means to the perpetrators of the terrorist act committed on March 22, 2024” at Crocus City Hall.

The jihadist organization Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack on this concert hall. However, Russia also says it believes “Ukrainian nationalists” are linked to the attack, a claim Kiev has strongly denied.

The four men charged by Russian authorities with carrying out the attack were from Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic in central Asia where Islamic State is active.