Austria stabbing Islamist attack says interior minister

The Syrian suspect, who randomly started attacking passersby with a knife on Saturday, was an “Islamist attacker,” Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said on Sunday. The attack left a teenager killed and caused five other injuries.

“It is an Islamist attack with IS connections,” Karner told reporters, adding that the suspect was radicalized online “in a short space of time.”

What else do we know about the attack?

Interior Minister Karner said Sunday he felt “anger about an Islamist attacker who indiscriminately stabbed innocent people here in this city.”

The suspect used a folding knife to target passersby, police said. He was arrested shortly after the attack, when another Syrian — a food delivery driver — stopped him by ramming him with his car.

State governor Peter Kaiser thanked a 42-year-old Syrian man.

“This shows how closely terrorist evil but also human good can be united in one and the same nationality,” he said.

The suspect is an asylum seeker but has a valid residence permit and no criminal record, police said.

Rare attack restarts migration debate

Austria’s President Alexander Van der Bellen condemned the attack as “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 said on X.

Carinthia Governor Peter Kaiser of the Social Democrats called for the “harshest consequences” for this “unbelievable atrocity.”

Far-right leader Herbert Kickl meanwhile called for a “rigorous clamp-down on asylum.”

Kickl’s Freedom Party (FPÖ) unprecedentedly topped last September’s national elections, but announced earlier this week it had failed to form a government with the runner-up and incumbent conservatives. The parties failed to reach consensus on who would hold sensitive cabinet posts dealing with security.

Syrians condemn the attack

The Free Syrian Community in Austria also condemned the attack and distanced itself from it in a statement on Facebook.

“We would like to emphasize: Anyone who causes strife and disturbs the peace of society does not represent the Syrians who have sought and received protection here,” the statement said.

Austria, like many other countries in Europe, hosts a sizable Syrian community, the majority of whom fled during the civil war which lasted over a decade.

When Syria’s Bashar Assad was ousted in December’s lightning offensive, Austria joined a host of European countries that froze pending asylum requests from Syrians. The country also stopped family reunifications, sending out at least 2,400 letters to revoke refugee status.

The Austrian Interior Ministry said it was preparing “an orderly repatriation and deportation program to Syria.”