30 arrested in terrorism raids

AUSTRIAN police made 30 arrests in more than 60 raids yesterday as part of an anti-terrorism operation, but there was no link to a deadly attack in Vienna a week ago in which a convicted jihadist killed four people, prosecutors said.

Austria has formally remanded in custody 10 suspects in connection with the attack by a 20-year-old gunman who had previously been convicted of trying to join Islamic State in Syria. Police shot him dead minutes after he opened fire on bars and bystanders in central Vienna.

Yesterday’s raids on apartments, houses, businesses and association premises in four Austrian provinces targeted people suspected of belonging to or supporting the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, the prosecutors’ office in the southern city of Graz said.

“The suspicion is of belonging to a terrorist organisation, financing terrorism, association against the state, criminal organisation and money laundering,” it said, adding that the investigation had begun a year ago.

Prosecutors are investigating more than 70 people on suspicion of belonging to and supporting Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

The scale of Austria’s intelligence failure before last week’s deadly jihadist attack in Vienna became clearer yesterday as the Interior Ministry confirmed the attacker had taken part in a large meeting in the summer that included Islamists from abroad.

Austria has acknowledged that “intolerable mistakes were made” in the handling of intelligence.