Austrian Minister claims terrorist attack was “Islamist”
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Hundreds of police fanned out across Vienna on Tuesday, searching for perpetrators of attacks that left five people dead in the city’s centre, after what a government minister said was an “Islamist terrorist” incident.
Austrian state broadcaster ORF reported that several people have been arrested and that seven police officers “made use of their service weapons on Monday evening in the course of the terrorist attack”.
In an early morning televised news conference, Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer repeated calls for the public to stay off the streets.
Nehammer said police had shot to death one attacker, a man wearing an explosives belt that turned out to be fake, whom authorities have identified as an Islamic State sympathiser.
Police confirmed on Tuesday that three civilians – two men and a woman – were killed in the attacks, with at least 15 others wounded, including a police officer. Broadcaster ORF later said a fourth civilian, a woman, had died.
Seven of the injured were in a life-threatening condition, the APA news agency said.
A police spokesman said that reinforcements had been called in from neighbouring states and that at least 1,000 officers were involved in the search.
“We experienced an attack yesterday evening by at least one Islamist terrorist, a situation that we have not had to live through in Austria for decades,” Nehammer said.
