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The attacks, in six locations, including near a synagogue in the city center, were carried out by “several suspects armed with rifles,” police said.
Firefighters and police cars stop near Schwedenplatz after a shooting in central Vienna on November 2, 2020. Image: AFP
VIENNA – Gunmen opened fire at various locations in central Vienna on Monday, killing at least two people and wounding several more in what Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz described as a “repulsive terrorist attack,” with a massive manhunt underway. of the assailants.
One of the gunmen was shot dead by police who said they were looking for at least one more attacker who was still at large.
The attacks, in six locations, including near a synagogue in the city center, were carried out by “several suspects armed with rifles,” police said.
Police said one person had died, and the public broadcaster ORF stated that the individual was a passerby.
Vienna Mayor Michael Ludwig told ORF that a second person had died from his injuries and that 15 people had been taken to hospital, seven of them seriously injured.
Police previously stated that an officer was also injured during the assaults.
The shooting started just hours before Austria reimposed a coronavirus lockdown, with people in bars and restaurants enjoying one last night of relative freedom.
The attacks began around 8 pm (1900 GMT) when the first shots were heard in the first district located in the center of the city.
At a press conference Tuesday morning, Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said: “From what we currently know, there is at least one attacker who is still on the run.”
Speaking to the ORF, Austrian leader Kurz said the attackers “were very well equipped with automatic weapons” and had “prepared professionally”.
Earlier, he tweeted: “Our police will act decisively against the perpetrators of this repulsive terrorist attack,” adding that “we will never be intimidated by terrorism and will combat this attack with all means.”
Kurz said that while the police focus on the counterterrorism operation, the army will take over the security of the main buildings in Vienna.
Nehammer urged Vienna residents to stay in their homes and stay away from all public places or public transportation. He said children would not be expected at school on Tuesday in Vienna.
Sirens and helicopters could be heard in the city center as emergency services responded to the attack.
An AFP photographer said a large number of police officers were guarding an area near the city’s famous opera house.
The site of the initial shooting was near a major synagogue.
The president of the Vienna Jewish community, Oskar Deutsch, said that shots had been fired “in the immediate vicinity” of the Stadttempel synagogue, but added that it is currently unknown whether the temple itself has been the target of an attack.
He said the synagogue and office buildings at the same address were closed at the time of the attack.
‘ACT COWELY’
“It sounded like firecrackers, then we realized it was gunshots,” said a witness quoted by the public broadcaster ORF.
A shooter had “fired savagely with an automatic weapon” before police arrived and opened fire, the witness added.
Austria had so far been spared the kind of big attacks that have hit other European countries.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who has suffered two serious attacks in recent weeks, tweeted that “we French share the shock and pain of the Austrian people.”
“After France, it is a friendly nation that has been attacked,” he added, referring to the murder on Thursday of three people by an attacker in the southern city of Nice and the beheading of a school teacher by a suspected Islamist on the outskirts of Paris several days before. .
The head of the EU Council, Charles Michel, tweeted that the bloc “strongly condemns this cowardly act.”
And the German Foreign Ministry tweeted that the Austrian reports were “horrifying and disturbing.”
“We cannot give in to hatred that aims to divide our societies,” the ministry added.
The Czech police said they were carrying out checks on the Austrian border.
“The police are carrying out random checks of vehicles and passengers at the border crossings with Austria as a preventive measure in relation to the terrorist attack in Vienna,” the Czech police tweeted.
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte also “strongly condemned” the shootings.
“There is no place for hatred and violence in our common European home,” he said on Twitter in Italian and German.
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