Austria admits security failings over gunman

vienna — Austria acknowledged on Wednesday there had been security failings leading up to the deadly gun rampage in Vienna by a convicted Daesh sympathiser.

Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said intelligence services had received a warning from neighbouring Slovakia that the assailant had tried to buy ammunition, but that “a failure of communication” had followed.

The gunman, identified as 20-year-old dual Austrian-Macedonian national Kujtim Fejzulai, was killed by police after going on a shooting spree in Vienna on Monday evening that left four people dead. Police detained 14 people in the wake of the shooting, the first major attack in Austria for decades and the first blamed on a militant.

They were “aged 18 to 28, from minority communities and some aren’t Austrian citizens,” Nehammer said.

Police say “it’s possible they supported” the gunman but their exact role remains unclear.

The authorities now say Fejzulai acted alone after initial fears more assailants could be at large. Fejzulai had been convicted and sentenced to 22 months in prison in April last year for trying to travel to Syria and join the Daesh group.

But he was released on probation in December and had been referred to organisations specialising in de-radicalisation programmes.

Daesh — which has claimed numerous attacks in Europe — said on Tuesday a “soldier of the caliphate” was responsible for the shooting. —

If he (attacker) had not been released then the terror attack would not have been possible Sebastian Kurz Chancellor of Austria