In this photo taken from video released by Investigative Committee of Russia on Sunday, March 24, 2024, a suspect in the Crocus City Hall shooting on Friday is escorted to the Russian Investigative Committee headquarters in Moscow, Russia. have been identified by authorities as citizens of Tajikistan, some of the thousands who migrate to Russia each year from the poorest of the former Soviet republics to scrape out marginal existences.
Saidakrami Murodali Rachabalizoda, 30, is apparently unemployed. Registered as a resident in Russia, he could not remember in what city, according to Russian news reports. When he appeared in court, his head was awkwardly bandaged after Russian officers reportedly sawed off one of his ears. Although its nearly 10 million people are overwhelmingly Muslim, tensions connected to Islam are rife.
Tajikistan has not made any official statement about the arrest of the four men suspected in the attack. But Rahmon was quoted by his government's press service as telling Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call that “terrorists have neither nationality, nor a homeland, nor religion.
One of the most prominent figures to join IS was Gulmurod Khalimov, who was an officer with Tajikistan’s special forces before defecting and joining IS in Syria in 2015. In 2017, the Russian military said Khalimov was killed in a Russian airstrike in Syria.