Vienna attacker ‘tried to join IS’
AT least one Islamic extremist rampaged through a crowded Vienna nightlife district hours ahead of a coronavirus lockdown, leaving four people dead before he was killed by police, Austrian authorities have said.
The suspect in Monday night’s attack – a 20-year-old armed with an automatic rifle and a fake explosive vest – was identified as a young Austrian-North Macedonian dual citizen with a previous terror conviction for attempting to join the so-called Islamic State group in Syria.
Unverified video showed the suspect, dressed in white coveralls, firing off bursts apparently at random as he ran down the Austrian capital’s cobbled streets.
Police searched 18 properties as well as the suspect’s apartment, detaining 14 people associated with the assailant who are being questioned, interior minister Karl Nehammer said. Two men and two women died from their injuries in the attack, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said.
He added that a police officer who tried to get in the way of the attacker was shot and wounded, and another 21 people were hurt.
Vienna’s hospital service said seven people were in life-threatening condition after the attack, APA reported.
“Yesterday’s attack was clearly an Islamist terror attack,” Mr Kurz said. “It was an attack out of hatred – hatred for our fundamental values, hatred for our way of life, hatred for our democracy in which all people have equal rights and dignity.”
The attacker, identified as Kujtim Fejzulai, was sentenced to 22 months in prison in April 2019 because he had tried to travel to Syria to join IS. He was granted early release in December under juvenile law.
Mr Nehammer told APA that Fejzulai had posted a photo on his Instagram account before the attack that showed him with two of the weapons he apparently used.
“(The suspect) was equipped with a fake explosive vest and an automatic rifle, a handgun and a machete to carry out this repugnant attack on innocent citizens,” Mr Nehammer said.
He added that the evidence gathered so far shows no indication that there was a second assailant involved in the attack.
People in Vienna were urged to stay at home if possible yesterday and children did not have to go to school. Some 1,000 police officers were on duty in the city yesterday morning.