Hello and welcome to the details of Austria calls teen’s fatal stabbing an ‘Islamist attack,’ links suspect to IS and now with the details
Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - Candles and flowers sit at the scene where a 14-year-old boy was killed and several others were wounded in a stabbing attack, in the town of Villach, Austria February 16, 2025. — Reuters pic
VILLACH (Austria), Feb 17 — A stabbing that left a teenager dead and five other people injured in southern Austria was an “Islamist attack”, the interior minister said on Sunday, with a 23-year-old Syrian asylum seeker held.
Saturday’s attack in the city of Villach has shaken the Alpine nation, where far-right-led talks to form a government collapsed this week with security one of the major issues.
Austria had so far only seen one jihadist attack, in 2020, when a convicted Islamic State (IS) sympathiser went on a shooting rampage in downtown Vienna, killing four.
In Villach’s “Islamist attack with IS connections,” the Syrian asylum seeker held was radicalised online “in a short space of time”, according to Interior Minister Gerhard Karner.
During a raid of the suspect’s apartment, police said they found “clear evidence of Islamist radical thought”, such as IS flags on the wall.
No weapons or “other dangerous items” were found, police said, adding the suspect was under investigation for “murder and attempted murder” charges.
‘Afraid’
In the attack in the centre of the city in Carinthia state, the suspect went after passers-by with a folding knife.
A fellow Syrian food deliverer, also an asylum seeker, intervened by ramming a car into the attacker, who was slightly injured and then arrested.
A 14-year-old Austrian died, while five other people were hurt, including three of them seriously. Among the wounded are two other teens, both aged 15.
The suspect is an asylum seeker with a valid residence permit and no criminal record, according to police.
At the scene of the crime on a shopping street, residents were placing candles. Some hugged.
Local resident Tanja Planinschek told AFP she was “afraid for my children”, adding Austria “should open our eyes and see whom we let in, whom we help, whom we leave with all kinds of freedoms. If nothing is done, it will get even worse”.
Authorities praised those who helped, including the food deliverer who stopped the attack.
The deliverer, Alaaeddin Alhalabi, 42, told the Krone tabloid that he “didn’t think twice” when seeing the attack.
“He wanted to go towards the city centre, there were children on the street — I couldn’t let that happen,” he said.
‘Appalling’
The Villach attack came just two days after a suspected Afghan asylum seeker rammed a car into people in the city of Munich in neighbouring Germany, killing a two-year-old girl and her mother and wounding dozens others.
German police said the 24-year-old Afghan may have had Islamist extremist motives for the attack.
Austria’s Karner said he wanted to have random “mass screenings... of special target groups, namely asylum seekers... with a Syrian or Afghan background” to try to prevent such attacks.
But he did not give further details on how this could take place.
Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen called the attack “appalling”, while conservative Alexander Schallenberg, who currently holds the chancellorship, said “hate, intolerance and extremism have no place in our open pluralistic society”.
Austria’s Muslim representative council, IGGOe, also condemned the “heinous act” that stood “in complete contradiction to the values of our faith”.
Far-right leader Herbert Kickl — whose party topped September’s national elections for the first time ever — has called for “a rigorous clamp-down on asylum”.
Kickl’s Freedom Party (FPOe) this week failed in talks to form a government with the election runner-up and incumbent conservatives because of disagreements — among others — over who would hold sensitive cabinet posts dealing with security.
Austria hosts a large Syrian refugee population of almost 100,000.
After Bashar al-Assad’s ouster in Syria in December, Austria and several European countries froze pending asylum requests from Syrians to reassess the situation.
In addition, Austria’s interior ministry said it was preparing “an orderly repatriation and deportation programme to Syria”. — AFP
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