Austrian investigators on Tuesday were piecing together the rampage on Monday through central Vienna by a lone gunman that was later claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group, as Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz called for a European response to “political Islam.”
Four people were killed and 22 wounded when Kujtim Fejzulai, described as a 20-year-old Islamic State sympathizer who had spent time in prison, opened fire with a Kalashnikov in a busy area of the Austrian capital the night before the country went into a new COVID-19 lockdown.
The Islamic State group — which has claimed numerous attacks in Europe — on Tuesday said that a “soldier of the caliphate” was responsible for the attack, its news agency said.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Police on Monday shot the gunman dead and later swooped on 18 addresses and made 14 arrests as they looked for possible accomplices and sought to determine whether he had acted alone.
After reviewing CCTV footage of the attack in an area teaming with bars and restaurants not far from the sights of central Vienna, Austrian Minister of the Interior Karl Nehammer said that the video “does not at this time show any evidence of a second attacker.”
Vienna police have asked people who filmed the attack to share their recordings with the authorities to aid in tracking the gunman’s route through the capital, rather than posting them to social media.
Photo: Reuters
On Fejzulai’s computer, investigators found incriminating evidence, including a photograph recently posted on Facebook showing him carrying the automatic weapon and a machete used during the attack.
Police said he was also wearing a fake explosive belt.
Kurz condemned the shooting as a “repulsive terror attack,” which he said killed a waitress, a young passer-by, and an older man and woman.
He called on the EU to fight against “political Islam,” saying it was an ideology that represented a “danger” to the model of the European way of life, in an interview published in Germany’s Die Welt newspaper.
The investigation is spanning several countries, with Switzerland making two arrests and Macedonia, where Fejzulai has family roots, cooperating with the Austrian authorities.
The attack came after several Islamist atrocities in France, including an assault on churchgoers in Nice and the beheading of a schoolteacher near Paris.
The recent republication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in France has caused new tensions worldwide, sparking protests in some Muslim-majority countries and calls from several terror groups for their followers to take revenge.
Britain on Tuesday upgraded its terrorism threat level from “substantial” to “severe.”
Nehammer said that Fejzulai had been convicted and jailed for a terror offense in April last year for trying to travel to Syria.
The dual Austrian and Macedonian national had then been admitted to a government-funded deradicalization program and had secured an early release in December last year from a 22-month prison sentence.
“The perpetrator managed to fool the deradicalization program of the justice system, to fool the people in it and to get an early release,” Nehammer said. “It was clear that the attacker, despite all the outward signs of having integrated into society, did exactly the opposite.”
Meanwhile, two young Austrians have been hailed for their courage during Monday’s attack, after footage of them intervening to aid wounded people, including a policeman, spread across social media.
A video shot from a nearby building shows the pair running to a metro station exit and helping panicked passers-by to take cover — as gunshots were still echoing down the street.
The Austrian Ministry of the Interior on Tuesday confirmed, without naming the pair, that they had helped during the attack.
Mikail Ozen and Recep Tayyip Gultekin, both Austrian citizens from Turkish backgrounds, had planned to “drink a last coffee” together at bustling Schwedenplatz before the COVID-19 lockdown came into effect, they said in a video posted online immediately after the attack.
The first shots could be heard even as they arrived at the busy square to find “people lying on the ground covered in blood,” Ozen said.
They went to help a panicked older woman who was looking for a place to hide, only to see a wounded policeman lying on the ground.
“We couldn’t act as if we hadn’t seen him,” Ozen said. “We ran and carried him to the ambulance” by supporting him under his shoulders as the gunfire continued.
The two semi-professional martial artists issued an appeal for unity between “Jews, Christians and Muslims” that was picked up by many Austrian media outlets.
“We’re Muslims of Turkish origin, we hate any kind of terrorism. We’re with Austria, with Vienna, we respect Austria,” they said.
Turkish media reported that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had called the pair to congratulate them.
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