A stabbing that left a teenager dead and five others injured in southern Austria was an "Islamist attack," Austria's Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said on Sunday, February 16.
In the attack in the centre of the city, a man went after passers-by with a folding knife, police said. A 14-year-old boy died, while five other men were hurt, including two seriously. Among the wounded are two other teens, both aged 15, police said. The suspect was an asylum seeker with a valid residence permit and no criminal record, according to police.
"It is an Islamist attack with IS connections," Karner told reporters in the southern city of Villach where Saturday's attack took place, referring to the Islamic State jihadist group. He added that the suspect – a 23-year-old Syrian asylum seeker – had been radicalised online "in a short space of time."
The Syrian perpetrator was arrested just after the attack, which another Syrian national, a food delivery driver, stopped by ramming his car into the attacker, who was slightly hurt, police said.
"I saw a person lying on the ground, a man was attacking other passers-by - I didn't think twice and drove at him," the Krone tabloid quoted the deliverer, Alaaeddin Alhalabi, 42, as saying. "He wanted to go towards the city centre, there were children on the street – I couldn't let that happen," he said, adding he regretted he could not save the 14-year-old boy.
At the site of the crime, residents were placing candles in front of shops in a street, where the attack happened in the centre of Villach, a city in Carinthia province. Some hugged.
Another eyewitness, Mahir, 29, told Krone that it was "like a movie." "First, he (the attacker) argued with people in a side street, then he started hitting around him. We first tried to hold him down. Then we saw the knife and backed away (...) He went after everyone," he said.
Carinthia Governor Peter Kaiser of the Social Democrats called for the "harshest consequences" for this "unbelievable atrocity."
Far-right political leader Herbert Kickl – whose party topped September's national elections for the first time ever – said he was "appalled" by the attack, calling for "a rigorous clamp-down on asylum." Kickl's Freedom Party (FPOe), earlier this week, failed to form a government in talks with the incumbent conservative party, the runner-up in the elections, because of disagreements – among others – over who would hold sensitive cabinet positions dealing with security.
Austria hosts a large Syrian refugee population of almost 100,000. After Bashar al-Assad's regime was toppled in Syria in December, Austria and several European countries froze pending asylum requests from Syrians to reassess the situation. In addition, Austria has stopped family reunifications and sent out at least 2,400 letters to revoke refugee status.
The interior ministry has said it was preparing "an orderly repatriation and deportation programme to Syria."
Austria has so far only seen one jihadist attack, in 2020, when a convicted IS sympathiser went on a shooting rampage in downtown Vienna, killing four.