DUSHANBE, March 29. /TASS/. Officers of Tajikistan’s State Committee for National Security have detained 15 people in the country on suspicion of preparing terrorist attacks during festive events in Dushanbe and Vakhdat, the Asia Plus news outlet reported.

According to it, "it is not known whether the 15 detainees are related to the suspects in the terrorist attack" at Crocus City Hall in a Moscow suburb. "The investigation will show whether the detainees were linked to the suspects. It is not yet known whether they were all part of the same cell and acted together, or whether each of them wanted to commit a terrorist attack in Russia and Tajikistan separately. The investigation is ongoing and these questions will be answered," the news outlet quoted a security source as saying.

Earlier, Reuters, citing sources in Tajikistan’s security services, reported the detention of nine people who are allegedly linked to the Crocus City Hall attack suspects and Islamic State Khorasan, a branch of the Islamic State terrorist organization outlawed in Russia. According to the news agency, they were also detained in Vakhdat and taken to Dushanbe.

On the evening of March 22, a terrorist attack targeted the Crocus City Hall music venue in Krasnogorsk, Moscow Region, just outside the Moscow city limits. According to the latest data, 143 people were killed and 382 people were injured, 205 of whom received outpatient care. All four gunmen were apprehended, along with another five people suspected of involvement in the terrorist attack. For the first time since 2018, Russia declared a day of national mourning over the Crocus City Hall attack. Russian President Vladimir Putin stated on March 25 that the attack had been carried out by radical Islamists. The Russian Investigative Committee said on Thursday that investigators had found evidence of the perpetrators’ connection to Ukrainian nationalists.