Today, Russia cast doubt on claims by the United States of America (USA) that the Islamic State militant group was responsible for an armed attack on a concert hall near Moscow that killed 137 people and injured another 182, reports Reuters.
In Russia's deadliest attack in two decades, four men burst into Crocus City Hall on Friday night, shooting people just before Soviet-era rock group Piknik were to perform their hit song "Afraid of Nothing."
Four men were detained for terrorism. They appeared separately, in a cage in Moscow's Basmani District Court.
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack, and the US has publicly said it believes the militant group is behind the attack. Islamic State has also released what it says are videos of the attack.
US officials said they alerted Russia to intelligence about an imminent attack earlier this month.
But Russian President Vladimir Putin has not publicly mentioned the Islamist militant group in connection with the attackers, who he said were trying to flee to Ukraine.
Putin said that some people on the "Ukrainian side" were ready to take the attackers across the border.
Ukraine has denied any role in the attack, and the country's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has accused Putin of trying to shift the blame for the attack on the concert hall by referring to Ukraine.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova questioned US claims that the Islamic State, which once controlled parts of Iraq and Syria, was behind the attack.
"Attention - a question for the White House: Are you sure it's ISIS? Can you think about it again?" Zakharova said in an article for Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.
Zakharova said the US was spreading a "bogus" version of the Islamic State to cover its "protégés" in Kiev and reminded readers that Washington supported "mujahideen" fighters who fought Soviet forces in the 1980s.
The US has intelligence confirming the Islamic State's claim of responsibility, two US officials said on Friday.
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