Attack in Vienna: the terrorist’s failed attempts to get ammunition for his AK-47

KThere is a 15-minute drive between the place where the Vienna attacker last lived and the crime scene outside of Vienna’s city center. There, from Schwedenplatz, the path leads along the Danube canal to the Prater. Up to this point, it is Vienna that you know: clean, gallant, classic.

From there, however, brothels and cheap shops line the street, past Mexikoplatz, a well-known transshipment point for illegals, beyond the Danube, along a wide artery lined with residential silos. This is a corner of Vienna where tourists almost never get lost.

“Transdanubia” is the popular name of this district. An area that the Viennese do not usually consider part of this city on the other side of the river. Here he lived. The man who shot four people in Vienna on Monday before he himself was killed by police.

And this was probably also where the perpetrator posed with his weapons before his act. An AK-47, a pistol and a machete, and I posted the photos on the Internet.

After the terrorist attack in Vienna and the uncertainty that followed, mainly due to the reports of at least one other fugitive perpetrator, it is clear that the perpetrator in all probability acted only in the execution of the crime. It is not yet clear how he got to the crime scene.

You must not have used public transportation. There were raids around the perpetrator and arrests. The house of the perpetrator was also searched. Two people who are said to have been in contact with the attacker were also arrested in Switzerland.

It is supposed to be an act of Islamist motivation. The SI terrorist militia assumed responsibility for the attack. It is not known whether the perpetrator or people around him were actually in contact with the terrorist group. The exact environment of the perpetrator, the networks that surround him, are the subject of the investigation, and the fog is slowly clearing.

So far a lot is known about the perpetrator: The 20-year-old had dual Austrian and North Macedonian citizenship, had completed his school education in Vienna, and had recently moved out of his parents’ apartment.

In 2018, he tried to travel to Afghanistan, but was turned away at the airport because he did not have a visa. Only a few months later he tried to travel to the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, but was arrested in Turkey along with a second person and later turned over to the Austrian authorities.

In April 2019, the then 18-year-old was sentenced to prison for this, but was released last December. According to the Vienna Interior Ministry, he is now said to have only faked his de-radicalization. The Justice Ministry immediately said: The man had meticulously met his parole requirements.

However, the Austrian authorities are likely to learn of signs of inconsistencies no later than July. It is the perpetrator’s trip to Slovakia that caused quite a stir. Apparently the killer wanted to get ammunition for an AK-47, but he shut down because he couldn’t present a gun license.

Authorities alerted in summer

The clumsy attempt resulted in a report by the Slovak authorities to the Interior Ministry in Vienna. But not enough: the later killer was apparently on his way with a second person. In a car registered by the mother of an Islamist who was officially known in Austria.

According to the Slovak police, all this should have happened in summer. Consequently, the Austrian authorities were immediately informed. The Vienna section of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the Fight against Terrorism (BVT) is said to have received the information according to the daily “Kurier”, but only in October.

And, according to a spokeswoman, the Vienna prosecutor was only informed about the failed ammunition purchase on the night of the crime. The Ministry of Justice sees the BVT as an obligation. This did not forward the information. Ultimately, however, the Home Office in particular has come under fire, as the warning appears to have leaked there first. Interior Minister Karl Nehammer admitted on Wednesday that “something went wrong” here.

In Austria, 14 people from the aggressor’s environment are currently being investigated. The people were arrested in the course of 18 raids in Vienna, Linz and St. Pölten and are currently being questioned. However, the prosecution emphasizes that none of these 14 people have yet been preventively detained. According to the current state of knowledge, no one in this group should have been directly involved in the act. One of these people is likely the man with whom the perpetrator was arrested in Turkey in 2018 while trying to travel to Syria.

Where did the murder weapon come from?

And also in Switzerland two people who were in close contact with the attacker and who are said to have known him were arrested. According to reports from Switzerland, the perpetrator may have also attempted to obtain ammunition in Switzerland. It is not entirely clear where the perpetrator got the weapon from. The AK-47 automatic assault rifle is of particular interest.

However, getting such a weapon is probably not a problem in Vienna. Above all, the largest stocks of the Balkan wars are likely to have ended in Vienna. After its agreed disarmament in 1999, the Kosovo KLA in particular is said to have sent parts of its possessions to Vienna, among others, to save them from destruction.

The author reportedly actually used a replica of AK licensed from the territory of the former Yugoslavia. The pistol the man carried with him is said to be a tokarw, a weapon made by the Soviet Union.

The Hungarian Army AK-47s, which were retired and “demilitarized” (with continuous firing off) in the late 1990s, are also a problem. Many things are said to have landed in Vienna, as repeatedly underlined in reports on the security situation. These “demilitarized” rifles can very easily be made fully operational again. The murder of a Chechen in Vienna last July also offered insight into the illegal arms business in Vienna.