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The “Operation Luxor” is what the Austrian Office for the Protection of the Constitution calls its action, during which yesterday morning almost 1000 officials in Styria, Vienna, Carinthia and Lower Austria searched around 60 apartments, shops and halls of clubs of people who are assigned to the Islamist scene.
The suspects are said to support the radical Muslim Brotherhood, which originated in Egypt, and the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas. There are 70 defendants, 30 people were “brought for immediate questioning,” said a spokesman for the Graz prosecutor. There should be no direct connection to the attack in Vienna.
Cash and assets (including real estate) were seized during the raids. “In millions”, as Franz Ruf, Director General of Public Safety announced. It is investigated for the formation of a terrorist organization, suspicion of terrorist financing, support for anti-subversive connections and money laundering. The money is said to have been used to finance “not just Hamas,” a Graz prosecutor said.
The investigations have been underway since “the second half of 2019,” Ruf said. The evaluations should now take some time. Even in the run-up to the operation, around 21,000 hours were spent on observations. “The Muslim Brotherhood is one of the most prominent players in political Islam,” Interior Minister Karl Nehammer (VP) said. It is “deeply dangerous” and is “clearly against the rule of law, democracy, human rights and the separation of religion and state.”
Its aim is a “planned Islamization” to undermine democracy and introduce Sharia law. In Austria it was possible to “form deep networks”. Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, Nehammer said. The radical Islamic Palestinian organization rejects the existence of the State of Israel. The interior minister said that “anti-Semitic tendencies can be clearly seen among the Muslim Brotherhood.” In addition to the investigation of the Vienna terrorist attack, there is also a fight against “the sowers of hate” in order to “prevent such acts in the future as much as possible”.
The task is to protect all people in Austria, especially Muslims, from radical tendencies. A spokesman for the prosecution emphasized that the investigation would not be directed against “Islam”. The Muslim Brotherhood is not a religious community at all, but part of political extremism. There was no further information on the identity of the suspects, their nationality and the clubs in question.
“Ramses” became “Luxor”
The police action, planned for months, was known the previous week. It was initially called “Ramses” and should have taken place the day after the attack in Vienna, as stated by FP club president Herbert Kickl. He suggested that the Viennese killer “maybe” learned of a leak and therefore attacked on November 2.
Muslim Brotherhood
American extremism researcher Lorenzo Vidino, who is now also a member of the advisory board of the newly created Center for Documentation of Political Islam, wrote a study on the Muslim Brotherhood in Austria in August 2017.
Founded in Egypt in 1928, it is considered the most influential Islamist movement in the world whose goal is Islamization and the creation of purely Islamic societies.
Officially there is no Muslim Brotherhood in Austria. However, there are clubs that are connected to it, according to the study. And these would try to occupy key positions in the life of Muslim immigrants. Due to the strong influence of the brotherhood, its followers have become “contacts for the western elites within the Muslim community” over the years.
Focus on Styria
The raids began yesterday morning in Styria in almost a dozen addresses. Among other things, a youth hotel was registered in Ramsau am Dachstein. One of the three registered mosques is that of the Islamic Cultural Center on Laubgasse in Graz, the largest Muslim house of prayer in southern Austria.
The representatives of the great mosque have recently been exposed to harsh criticism. In the center: the president of the Mahdi Mekic club. Yesterday he was questioned as one of the nine “target persons” of the “Luxor” operation in Styria, reports Kleine Zeitung. In addition to internal disputes over his management style, he and the mosque community are often subject to criticism, mainly due to the mosque’s content and opaque funding.
Several large donations have already been collected in the Arab region for the ten million euro mosque, including the educational and community center, which is yet to be built.
