One perpetrator was killed by the police, while another is still a fugitive. The Austrian government confirmed on Tuesday morning that there is a radical Islamic motive behind the act. The perpetrator shot was Kujtim Fejzulai, a 20-year-old man of both Austrian and North Macedonian nationality. He was an IS sympathizer. He had already been convicted of membership in a terrorist organization in the past.
The Austrian police have already carried out at least fifteen house searches. At least two arrests have been made. Some media even report four arrests. That reports the Austrian news agency APA.
Monday evening around eight o’clock gunfire took place at six different places in the center of Vienna, initially resulting in two fatalities. A perpetrator and someone who according to the police was ‘a passer-by’. Later, four more victims died of their injuries. An earlier report that one of the agents guarding the synagogue would have been killed in the attack turned out to be incorrect. The man is seriously injured, but out of danger.
In total, fifteen injured people were admitted to various capital hospitals, according to the Austrian news agency APA. Among them several people who died of their injuries.
Shooting with automatic weapons started near the largest synagogue in the Austrian capital, the ‘Stadthempel’ built in the eighteenth century in the Seitenstettengasse, a narrow street near the Schwedenplatz. There, in front of the Ruprecht Church, the police shot dead one of the perpetrators. “We are dealing with a terror attack, with a vehemence that we have not seen in Austria for a long time,” said Interior Minister Karl Nehammer at a press conference on the night from Monday to Tuesday.
Perpetrator fugitive
Because the police assumed that several armed perpetrators were still on the run, large parts of the city center were closed by the army until after midnight. In the meantime, Minister Nehammer has indicated that one more perpetrator is probably still on the run. He called on the population to stay at home and avoid the center of the Austrian capital. Moreover, there is no compulsory schooling in Vienna on Tuesday, he said at the press conference.
It was busier in the center of Vienna than on a regular Monday, as it was the last night before the government’s curfew, starting at 8pm on Tuesday evening. With this, the government hopes to quickly contain the corona virus that is also spreading in Austria. Moreover, it was a mild evening, which leaves the question open as to whether the perpetrators made conscious use of this ‘opportunity’.
Eyewitnesses, mainly guests from the surrounding catering industry, speak in Austrian media about the ‘perhaps hundreds of shots’ they heard. There are also unconfirmed rumors of an explosion. Several people saw perpetrators in ‘white tracksuits’. Movies circulating in the media – but not verified as genuine by the police – show at least one shooter dressed in white.
Radical Islamic motif
Due to the recent terror in France, there was soon plenty of speculation about a radical Islamic motif. Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer confirmed on Tuesday morning that the killed perpetrator was a supporter of IS. He would have worn a bomb belt.
In April 2019, he was convicted for attempting to travel to Syria to join the extremist terrorist movement Islamic State (IS). The attacker had been sentenced to 22 months in prison but was released on parole in early December, Nehammer said. Kujtim was brought to trial as a young adult, according to the Austrian press agency APA, and therefore fell under the rules of juvenile justice. The lawyer who defended Kujtim at the time leaves to the Austrian newspaper The standard his disbelief. “This could not be predicted at the time,” he says. “I firmly distance myself from this act.”
The question whether the synagogue, and thus the Jewish community, was the intended target of the attack has not yet been answered. This was emphasized by the chairman of the Jewish community himself on Monday evening. What is certain is that the shooting began for the synagogue that was closed at that time.
As a result, elderly residents of the Austrian capital will awaken unpleasant memories of the summer of 1981. Two Palestinian terrorists in front of the synagogue killed a number of Jewish believers with hand grenades and machine guns.
Chancellor Kurz assured on Twitter that Austria will never be ‘intimidated by terrorism’ and that the government “will resolutely fight these attacks by all means.”
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