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VIENNA: Gunmen fired at six locations in central Vienna starting near the central synagogue on Monday (November 2), killing at least two people, including one attacker, and wounding others as Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz described as a “repulsive terrorist attack”. .
A manhunt is underway against several suspected perpetrators who, Interior Minister Karl Nehammer, said are “heavily armed and dangerous.”
“We have assembled various special forces units that are now looking for the suspected terrorists. Therefore, I am not limiting it to one area of Vienna because these are mobile perpetrators,” Nehammer told ORF broadcaster, urging the public to stay inside until everyone becomes clear.
Police said there was “one person dead” and several wounded, including a police officer.
Meanwhile, a suspect had been “shot and killed by police officers,” Vienna police said on their Twitter account.
The attack had been carried out by “several suspects armed with rifles”, and the police added that there had been “six different shooting sites”.
The shots were fired around 8 pm, starting at Seitenstettengasse in the city’s first downtown district.
The shooting began just hours before Austria reimposed a coronavirus lockdown to try to slow the spread of COVID-19, and bars and restaurants were packed as people enjoyed one last night of relative freedom.
Nehammer told ORF that the attack took place in the immediate vicinity of the street that houses the central synagogue.
“At the moment I can confirm that we believe this is an apparent terrorist attack,” he said.
“We believe that there are several perpetrators. Unfortunately, there are also several injured, probably also dead.”
Frequent sirens could be heard in central Vienna as emergency services responded to the incident.
ORF reported that 15 people were being treated for injuries in Vienna hospitals and that seven were in serious condition.
Armed police control a passage near the opera in central Vienna on November 2, 2020, following a shooting near a synagogue. (Photo: AFP / Joe Klamar)
The authorities gave no indication of the identity of the attackers or the motive for the attack.
The president of the Jewish community in Vienna, 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 synagogue 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.
“It sounded like firecrackers, then we realized it was gunshots,” said a witness quoted by ORF.
A shooter had “fired savagely with an automatic weapon” before police arrived and opened fire, the witness added.
An armed policeman guards the passage of the state opera in central Vienna on November 2, 2020, following a shooting near a synagogue. (Photo: AFP / Joe Klamar)
Videos of an armed man running down a cobbled street, shooting and screaming, circulated on social media. Reuters could not immediately verify the videos.
In 1981, two people died and 18 were injured during an attack by two Palestinians on the same synagogue. In 1985, a Palestinian extremist group attacked the Vienna airport with hand grenades and assault rifles, killing three civilians.
In August, authorities arrested a 31-year-old Syrian refugee suspected of trying to attack a leader of the Jewish community in the country’s second city, Graz. The leader was unharmed.
‘ACT COWELY’
Austria had so far been spared the kind of big attacks that have hit other European countries.
French President Emmanuel Macron 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 armed with a knife in the southern city of Nice and the beheading of a school teacher by an alleged extremist. on the outskirts of Paris for several days. prior to.
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.
Czech police said they had started random 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.
Czech Interior Minister Jan Hamacek said in a tweet that the Czech police were in contact with Austrian colleagues after the “terrible news from Vienna.”
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.
