US told Russia that Crocus City Hall was possible target of attack

More than two weeks before terrorists staged a bloody attack in the suburbs of Moscow, the US government told Russian officials that Crocus City Hall, a popular concert venue, was a potential target, according to US officials familiar with the matter.

The high degree of specificity conveyed in the warning underscores Washington’s confidence that the Islamic State was preparing an attack that threatened large numbers of civilians, and it directly contradicts Moscow’s claims that the US warnings were too general to help preempt the assault, The Washington Post reports.

The US identification of the Crocus concert hall as a potential target — a fact that has not been previously reported — raises new questions about why Russian authorities failed to take stronger measures to protect the venue, where gunmen killed more than 140 people and set fire to the building. A branch of the Islamic State has taken credit for the attack, the deadliest in Russia in 20 years. US officials have publicly said the group, known as Islamic State-Khorasan, or ISIS-K, “bears sole responsibility,” but Russian President Vladimir Putin has tried to pin the blame on Ukraine.

The US officials familiar with the information that Washington shared with Moscow spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations and intelligence. A spokesperson for the National Security Council declined to comment for this story. Previously, the NSC has acknowledged that the United States conveyed information “about a planned terrorist attack in Moscow” but did not say that Crocus City Hall was named as a possible target.

While Washington routinely shares information about possible terrorist attacks with foreign countries, under a policy known as the “duty to warn,” it is unusual to give information about specific targets to an adversary, officials and experts said. Doing so risks revealing how the United States obtained the intelligence, potentially putting clandestine surveillance activities or human sources at risk.

But the information that pointed to an attack on the concert hall also pointed at a potential danger for Americans in Russia. On March 7, the US Embassy publicly announced that it was “monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts,” and advised US citizens “to avoid large gatherings over the next 48 hours.”

The United States shared its information with Russia the day before that public warning, according to people familiar with the matter.