Austrian authorities said Sunday the stabbing of six those who left a 14-year-old boy dead was carried out by a person with possible connections to the Islamic State group who appeared to have acted alone.
The suspect, a 23-year-old Syrian, was arrested after the attack, which took place on Saturday afternoon in the middle of the southern city of Villach, near the foremost square. Police said he used a folding knife. Those wounded were two 15-year-old boys and men aged 28, 32 and 36. Two were seriously wounded and two others are also still receiving hospital treatment, while one was treated for minor injuries.
“That is an Islamist attack with an IS connection by an attacker who radicalized himself inside a really short time via the web,” Interior Minister Gerhard Karner told reporters in Villach Sunday.
State Gov. Peter Kaiser thanked a 42-year-old man, also a Syrian, working for a food delivery company who drove toward the suspect and helped prevent the situation from getting worse. “This shows how closely terrorist evil but additionally human good might be united in a single and the identical nationality,” he said.
As the main focus shifted to migration and asylum-seekers, Karner said that it’s going to ultimately be crucial to “perform a mass screening without cause, because this assassin was not conspicuous.”
He didn’t elaborate on his plans. It was unclear how long the suspect had been in Austria, although authorities said he had a residence permit.
Migration front and center in Austrian politics
Austria’s far-right leader Herbert Kickl, whose party won a national election 4 months ago, called for “a rigorous crackdown on asylum” within the wake of the attack.
On Sunday, Kickl said that since all other parties in Austria had did not implement the crucial asylum restrictions, it’s crucial for his party to regulate the Interior Ministry — which is in command of asylum and migration — in any future government.
Last week, coalition talks in Austria collapsed for a second time when Kickl’s Freedom Party and the conservative People’s Party were unable to agree on who would oversee the Interior Ministry.
Migration was a distinguished topic leading as much as the election, which resulted in Kickl’s party securing its first national election victory since World War II. The subject has taken center stage in lots of European countries, with far-right parties making inroads in elections.
On Saturday, police in neighboring Germany said a 2-year-old girl and her mother died two days after being injured in a car-ramming attack during a labor union demonstration in Munich. It marked the fifth attack involving immigrants in Germany over the past nine months, with migration becoming a big issue ahead of upcoming elections on Feb. 23.
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The mayor of Villach, Günther Albel, said the attack was a “stab in the guts of the town.”
State police director Michaela Kohlweiss said
“The present picture is that of a lone perpetrator,” Kohlweiss said. Police presence can be increased within the streets of Villach and at events within the weeks ahead, Kohlweiss added.
A second deadly attack in Austria
The Villach attack marks the second deadly extremist attack in Austria in recent times. In November 2020, a person who had previously attempted to hitch the Islamic State group carried out a rampage in Vienna, armed with an automatic rifle and a fake explosive vest, killing 4 people before being fatally shot by police.
Last August, authorities foiled an attack on Taylor Swift shows in Vienna that was inspired by the Islamic State group.
The Islamic Religious Community in Austria expressed sympathies to the victims and their families in an announcement on Sunday and said that it’s “fully committed to peaceful and respectful coexistence.” The President of the Islamic Religious Community, Ümit Vural, added that the attack “has nothing in common with the true values of our faith.”
Residents began placing candles at the positioning of the attack in the town of about 60,000 inhabitants. A gaggle of young individuals who knew the boy who died in attack gathered on the crime scene on Sunday morning to mourn and tearfully light candles, local media reported.
President Alexander Van der Bellen called the attack “horrific.”
“No words can undo the suffering, the horror, the fear. My thoughts are with the family of the deceased victim and the injured,” he posted on X.
The Free Syrian Community of Austria issued an announcement on Facebook distancing itself from the attack and expressing its deepest condolences to the victims’ families. “All of us needed to flee Syria, our home country, because we were now not protected there — nobody left their country voluntarily. We’re grateful to have found asylum and protection in Austria,” the association said.
Calls to strengthen migration rules
Kickl wrote on X Saturday that he’s “appalled by the horrific act in Villach.”
“At the identical time, I’m offended — offended at those politicians who’ve allowed stabbings, rapes, gang wars and other capital crimes to turn into the order of the day in Austria. This can be a first-class failure of the system, for which a young man in Villach has now needed to pay together with his life,” Kickl said.
In accordance with the Interior Ministry, 24,941 foreigners applied for asylum in Austria in 2024. The biggest group of applicants was from Syria, followed by Afghanistan.
Over the past two years, the variety of asylum seekers has decreased significantly. In 2022, applications peaked at over 100,000, while roughly 59,000 individuals sought asylum in 2023.
Conservative party leader Christian Stocker said on X that the attacker “should be delivered to justice and be punished with the total force of the law.”
The leader of the Social Democrats, Andreas Babler, said, “Crimes like this one simply mustn’t occur in our society.”
