[ad_1]
Image posted, fake images
Candles and flowers to mourn the victims of the attack
Austrian officials uncovered new intelligence flaws before four people died in Vienna on Monday night, prompting the city’s counter-terrorism chief ready to resign.
Police said Eric Svetler was suspended from work at his request.
Indeed, it emerged that the Austrians were informed in July that the suspect had tried to buy ammunition in Slovakia.
Now, the Austrians have admitted that the gunman met two people from Germany who were already under surveillance.
Interior Minister Karl Nihamer spoke of “errors that are clear and intolerable in our opinion.”
In another development, a mosque and a mosque association frequented by the 20-year-old, which according to Integration Minister Susan Raab, contributed to his radicalization, were closed.
He had frequently visited mosques in the suburbs of Otakring and Meidling. The Uttaring Mosque Association was notorious for its ties to hardline Islamists – a preacher was said to have led a German-speaking battalion into Syria before being killed in a drone raid.
Raab said the goal of terrorism is to drive a wedge in society between Muslims and non-Muslims.
What shortcomings have appeared?
Image posted, fake images
Shortly after two men and two women were killed in central Vienna, it became clear that the heavily armed gunman had been released early from a 22-month prison sentence for attempting to join ISIS in Syria.
The interior minister claimed to have misled the organizers of the anti-extremism program, although they denied it.
Slovak police revealed that they had informed their Austrian counterpart that the gunman had tried to buy ammunition in July. The Austrian national intelligence agency BVT appears to have mishandled the case, although officials had trouble identifying the suspect.
On Friday, German police searched the homes of four men in Kassel, Osnabrück and the Bienberg region near Hamburg, on suspicion of having links to the gunman, whom Austrian authorities described as an “Islamic terrorist” named Kogtim Wigsoulay.
Although they were not seen as suspects in the same shooting, two of the four are believed to have met the attacker in Vienna in July and were described in Germany as “part of the Islamic scene.”
The German news agency reported that both men met him several times, with one of them staying at his home. Another man is alleged to have resided with the militant’s family in Vienna and had tried unsuccessfully to travel to Syria.
German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer had already highlighted a German link that includes people “who are under 24-hour surveillance.”
Vienna Police Chief Gerhard Porstel said visitors from Germany are being monitored by the local intelligence and counterterrorism agency in Vienna on behalf of their German counterparts, but no action has been taken.
The police chief said that these meetings and the failed ammunition purchase attempt “could have had a different result in assessing the danger posed by the perpetrator.”
Image posted, Reuters
Prayers were held on Fridays for the souls of the victims of the Vienna shooting.
Was the attack due to planned raids in Vienna?
The Austrian Interior Minister had previously declined to comment on reports that the security forces were hours away from conducting a major counter-terrorism operation when the shooting began.
Operation “Ramses” was scheduled to begin at 03:00 on Tuesday, with raids on the homes of people known to the attacker, according to reports. But an interpreter leaked information about the searches, according to reports.
At 8:00 p.m. on Monday, the gunman departed for nine minutes in the center of Vienna and opened fire on people in bars and restaurants in the hours before their closure in light of the restrictions of the new Corona virus.
The attack, which took place in six separate locations, killed four people and wounded 23 others. The attack finally ended when the gunman was shot and killed.
A series of arrests were made in Vienna and elsewhere after the shooting.
