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Austrian authorities searched more than 60 apartments, shops and club rooms in the vicinity of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas on Monday morning. The Graz prosecutor’s office confirmed this to SPIEGEL. According to this, more than 70 suspects are investigated who are suspected of belonging to or supporting terrorist groups. The raids were not related to the attack in Vienna a week ago, the authority said.
A week ago, an Islamist killed four people and injured 23, some seriously, in the center of Vienna. The police shot him dead. The day after the terrorist attack, the Austrian authorities arrested several people close to the terrorist. The terrorist militia “Islamic State” claimed the attack in Vienna for itself. A “caliphate soldier” killed or wounded several people, according to the ISIS platform Naschir News.
According to the prosecutor’s office, the current house searches were carried out in Vienna, Lower Austria and Styria. In the case of 30 suspects, the demonstration was ordered for immediate questioning. The action is not directed against Muslims or the religious community of Islam. “Rather, the measures implemented should also serve to protect Muslims, whose religion is being misused to spread unconstitutional ideologies,” the prosecutor said.
From the point of view of authority, the Muslim Brotherhood is not a religious community, but represents political extremism motivated by religion. Although it appears in Europe with the “pretense of renouncing violence”, it maintains contacts with terrorist groups and close ideological and financial relations with radical Islamist groups in the Syrian-Iraqi civil war. The Muslim Brotherhood in Austria would also support the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas.
The nationwide raid was preceded by an extensive and intensive investigation by the Attorney General’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which lasted more than a year, the prosecutor said. The action under the name “Ramses” began at 5 am, according to Austrian media reports. Interior Minister Karl Nehammer was present according to the “Kurier”. “We are taking action against these criminal, extremist and inhumane organizations with the utmost severity and all possible means of the rule of law,” Nehammer said after the raids. They are a “major blow against the breeding ground of extremism.”
