At Least 20 Killed in Shooting in Las Vegas

At least 20 people were killed and over 100 wounded in a shooting in the US city of Las Vegas. (AFP)
At least 20 people were killed and over 100 wounded in a shooting in the US city of Las Vegas. (AFP)
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At Least 20 Killed in Shooting in Las Vegas

At least 20 people were killed and over 100 wounded in a shooting in the US city of Las Vegas. (AFP)
At least 20 people were killed and over 100 wounded in a shooting in the US city of Las Vegas. (AFP)

At least 20 people were killed and more than 100 wounded when a gunman opened fire at a music festival in the US city of Las Vegas on Sunday.

The attacker fired down from the 32nd floor of a hotel, where he was shot dead by police.

Police described the suspect as being a local Las Vegas man who acted alone and was not believed to be connected to any militant group, Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo told reporters.

Concert-goers reported hearing what they described as automatic gun fire during the shooting.

The attack was the deadliest mass shooting in the United States since a gunman who pledged allegiance to the ISIS terrorist group killed 49 people at an Orlando nightclub in June 2016.

"We have no idea what his belief system was," Lombardo said.

"Right now, we believe he was the sole aggressor and the scene is static."

Authorities were seeking a woman they named as Marilou Danley, he said. He described her as Asian, 4 foot 11 inches (1.5 m) tall, 111 pounds (50 kg). He gave no details of whether she was suspected of involvement in the attack but described her as an "associate".

Police were also searching for two cars that belonged to the suspect.

Lombardo said rumors of other shootings or explosives such as car bombs in the area were false. Video taken of the attack showed panicked crowds fleeing as sustained rapid gunfire ripped through the area.

Las Vegas's casinos, nightclubs and shopping are a major draw for some 3.5 million visitors from around the world each year and the area was packed with visitors when the shooting broke out shortly after 10 p.m. (0400 GMT).

Police warned the death toll may rise.

"I don't want to give you an accurate number because I don't have it yet," Lombardo said.

At least one police officer was hospitalized with critical injuries, Lombardo said.

The shooting broke out on the last night of the three-day Route 91 Harvest festival, a sold-out event attended by thousands and featuring top acts such as Eric Church, Sam Hunt and Jason Aldean.

US media, including Fox News, reported that Aldean was performing when the rampage began but that he had been bundled safely off stage at the event outside the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in the Nevada gambling resort. CNN reported all the performers were safe.

Lombardo said the gunfire came from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay, where the gunman was killed.

Police have disclosed no information that would suggest a motive for the shooting or revealed the identify of the suspect.

Even so, the rampage was reminiscent of a mass shooting at a Paris rock concert in November 2015 that killed 89 people, part of a coordinated attack by ISIS that left 130 dead.

A witness named Christine told CNN both she and her husband had separately taken shooting victims to two hospitals, the University Medical Center and the Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center.

"The shots just kept coming," she said. "Everyone was telling us 'run, run as fast as you can'."

The concert venue was in an outdoor area known as Las Vegas Village, across the Strip from the Mandalay Bay and the Luxor hotels.

The Mandalay Bay hotel is near McCarran International Airport, which said on Twitter it had temporarily halted flights after the shooting. Later, the airport said that some flights had resumed.

The United States has seen a series of deadly mass shootings in recent years. Prior to Orlando, the deadliest occurred in April 2007 when a gunman killed 32 people at Virginia Tech university and in December 2012 a man killed 26 young children and educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

Mike McGarry, a 53-year-old financial adviser from Philadelphia, said he was at the concert when he heard hundreds of shots ring out.

"It was crazy - I laid on top of the kids. They're 20. I'm 53. I lived a good life," McGarry said. The back of his shirt bore footmarks, after people ran over him in the panicked crowd.

Hours after the shooting, Aldean posted on Instagram that he and his crew were safe and said the shooting was "beyond horrific."

Kodiak Yazzie, 36, said he and his girlfriend were watching Aldean's performance when he heard what sounded like fireworks. The music stopped temporarily and started up again before another round of pops sent the performers ducking for cover and fleeing the stage.

Thousands fled as bursts of gunfire could be heard for more than five minutes, Yazzie said.

Authorities shut down part of the Las Vegas Strip and Interstate 15. Flights were temporarily halted at McCarran International Airport because of the shooting, the airport said on its verified Twitter account.



7 Killed by Russian Attacks as Moscow Pushes Ahead in Ukraine's East

Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV
Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV
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7 Killed by Russian Attacks as Moscow Pushes Ahead in Ukraine's East

Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV
Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV

Russian shelling in the town of Chasiv Yar on Saturday killed five people, as Moscow’s troops pushed ahead in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
The attack struck a high-rise building and a private home, said regional Gov. Vadym Filaskhin, who said the victims were men aged 24 to 38. He urged the last remaining residents to leave the front-line town, which had a pre-war population of 12,000.
“Normal life has been impossible in Chasiv Yar for more than two years,” Filaskhin wrote on social media. “Do not become a Russian target — evacuate.” A further two people were killed by Russian shelling in the Kharkiv region. One victim was pulled from the rubble of a house in the village of Cherkaska Lozova, said Gov. Oleh Syniehubov, while a second woman died of her wounds while being transported to a hospital.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said it captured the town of Pivnichne, also in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. The Associated Press could not independently verify the claim.
Russian forces have been driving deeper into the partly occupied eastern region, the total capture of which is one of the Kremlin’s primary ambitions. Russia’s army is closing in on Pokrovsk, a critical logistics hub for the Ukrainian defense in the area.
At the same time, Ukraine has sent its forces into Russia’s Kursk region in recent weeks in the largest incursion onto Russian soil since World War II. The move is partly an effort to force Russia to draw troops away from the Donetsk front.
Elsewhere, the number of wounded following a Russian attack on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Friday continued to rise.
Six people were killed, including a 14-year-old girl, when glide bombs struck five locations across the city, said regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov. Writing on social media Saturday, he said that the number of injured had risen from 47 to 96.
Syniehubov also confirmed that the 12-story apartment block that was hit by one bomb strike, setting the building ablaze and trapping at least one person on an upper floor, would be partly demolished.
Ukrainian officials have previously pointed to the Kharkiv strikes as further evidence that Western partners should scrap restrictions on what the Ukrainian military can target with donated weapons.
In an interview with CNN on Friday, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said that Kyiv had presented Washington with a list of potential long-range targets within Russia for its approval. “I hope we were heard,” he said.
He also denied speculation that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ’s decision to dismiss the commander of the country’s air force Friday was directly linked to the destruction of an F-16 warplane that Ukraine received from its Western partners four days earlier.
The order to dismiss Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleshchuk was published on the presidential website minutes before an address which saw Zelenskyy stress the need to “take care of all our soldiers.”
“This is two separate issues,” said Umerov. “At this stage, I would not connect them.”
The number of injured also continued to rise in the Russian border region of Belgorod, where five people were killed Friday by Ukrainian shelling, said Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov. He said Sunday that 46 people had been injured, of whom 37 were in the hospital, including seven children. Writing on social media, Gladkov also said that two others had been injured in Ukrainian shelling across the region.