A 23-year-old man with links to the Islamic State terrorist group stabbed several passersby in the center of the southern Austrian town of Villach on Saturday, killing a 14-year-old boy and injuring five other people, police said.
The police said that the suspected knifer was a Syrian asylum seeker who lived locally on a temporary residence permit, despite Austrian law requiring an attacker’s identity to be kept from the public.
The young man was detained at the scene after another Syrian man, a food delivery driver, charged into the attacker with his car and prevented him from harming more people, Rainer Dionisio, a spokesperson for the police in the southern state of Carinthia, said.
The injured were aged between 14 and 32, and two of them were in a serious condition in hospital after the stabbings, the spokesperson added.
Interior Minister Gerhard Karner told a press conference in Villach that the attacker had been rapidly radicalised on the internet and that the flag of the terrorist group Islamic State (IS) had been found in his apartment.
Police said the suspect, who is being charged with murder and attempted murder, had recorded himself swearing an oath of allegiance to IS.
The bloodshed in Villach followed an attack this week in Munich by an Afghan national who drove his car into a crowd of people, injuring dozens, two of whom later died.
Such attacks are extremely rare in Austria. A jihadist killed four people in Vienna in a shooting rampage in 2020 that was the country's deadliest assault in decades.
Villach is known for its carnival and is in an area that is a tourist hotspot in the summer as it includes one of Austria's most famous lakes, but otherwise attracts little attention.
“I have been in the (Carinthian police) press service for 20 years and cannot recall such an act,” Dionisio told national broadcaster Österreichischer Rundfunk.
The attack comes at a time of political upheaval in Austria as the far-right Freedom Party, which came first in September's parliamentary election, said on Wednesday it had failed to form a coalition government. The president is now considering whether an alternative to a snap election is available.
Railing against immigration and pledging to increase deportations to countries like Syria and Afghanistan, which it is currently illegal to deport people to, are central to the Freedom Party's platform and appeal, and the party quickly seized on the Villach attack.
"We need a rigorous crackdown on asylum and cannot continue to import conditions like those in Villach," Freedom Party leader Herbert Kickl said in a statement.
The young man was detained at the scene after another Syrian man, a food delivery driver, charged into the attacker with his car and prevented him from harming more people, Rainer Dionisio, a spokesperson for the police in the southern state of Carinthia, said.
The injured were aged between 14 and 32, and two of them were in a serious condition in hospital after the stabbings, the spokesperson added.
Interior Minister Gerhard Karner told a press conference in Villach that the attacker had been rapidly radicalised on the internet and that the flag of the terrorist group Islamic State (IS) had been found in his apartment.
Police said the suspect, who is being charged with murder and attempted murder, had recorded himself swearing an oath of allegiance to IS.
The bloodshed in Villach followed an attack this week in Munich by an Afghan national who drove his car into a crowd of people, injuring dozens, two of whom later died.
Such attacks are extremely rare in Austria. A jihadist killed four people in Vienna in a shooting rampage in 2020 that was the country's deadliest assault in decades.
Villach is known for its carnival and is in an area that is a tourist hotspot in the summer as it includes one of Austria's most famous lakes, but otherwise attracts little attention.
“I have been in the (Carinthian police) press service for 20 years and cannot recall such an act,” Dionisio told national broadcaster Österreichischer Rundfunk.
The attack comes at a time of political upheaval in Austria as the far-right Freedom Party, which came first in September's parliamentary election, said on Wednesday it had failed to form a coalition government. The president is now considering whether an alternative to a snap election is available.
Railing against immigration and pledging to increase deportations to countries like Syria and Afghanistan, which it is currently illegal to deport people to, are central to the Freedom Party's platform and appeal, and the party quickly seized on the Villach attack.
"We need a rigorous crackdown on asylum and cannot continue to import conditions like those in Villach," Freedom Party leader Herbert Kickl said in a statement.
Source: BBC, Polskie Radio, Reuters
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