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The horror of the terrorist attack in Vienna is great all over the world. The fact that the killer was an Austrian with roots in the Balkans highlights the jihadist scene and the country’s integration problems.
Heavily armed police officers were guarding the Federal Chancellery in Vienna on Tuesday.
In a completely unexpected way, terror struck Vienna on Monday. At least one heavily armed perpetrator fired an assault rifle in the city center and at visitors to restaurants and cafes. He killed at least 4 people before the police killed him. 17 people were injured in hospitals that night.
At home and abroad, there was great sympathy the next day. In Vienna the flags are at half mast and there is a three-day state duel. Donald Trump, Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron expressed their condolences, while politicians from all Austrian parties affirmed that the country cannot be divided by terror. Ümit Vural, president of the Community of Islamic Faith in Austria, condemned the attack in the strongest possible terms.
Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz was determined on Tuesday to wage the “struggle between civilization and barbarism” by all means. The attack was an attack on free society, “it was actually directed at all of us.” At the same time, he warned against generalizations. “This is not a dispute between Christians and Muslims, between Austrians and migrants,” clarified the chancellor. Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen spoke of a “dark night” that Austria had lived through.
Islamist sympathizer
The Interior Ministry confirmed on Tuesday that the killer was a 20-year-old Austrian-North Macedonian citizen born in Vienna. In 2019, he was sentenced to 22 months in prison for trying to join the Islamic State (IS) in Syria. However, due to his young age and a positive prognosis, he was released early on parole. It was reportedly also targeted by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, but it was not considered particularly dangerous.
Police searched the home of the man and 14 other people, and arrested several people. According to a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, a maximum of four perpetrators were on the route, but he could not rule out that only one person had carried out the attack. According to the German tabloid “Bild”, the murdered terrorist had announced his act on social networks and sent videos of the attack to the “Charlie Hebdo” newsroom.
Horror expert Thomas Riegler.
Austrian terrorism expert Thomas Riegler also finds a connection to France plausible. The clashes over the Muhammad cartoons and the three Islamist attacks in recent weeks had warmed up spirits. “The conflict has become a struggle of civilizations,” says the historian and political scientist.
This heated climate, to which the uncertainties of the Crown crisis also contribute, sparked unrest in Austria last week: on Thursday young people rioted in a church in Vienna-Favoriten, on Saturday an apparently mentally confused Afghan shouted Islamic slogans in the St. Stephen’s Cathedral. Even if these cases are not comparable to the terrorist attack on Monday night, they illustrate the potential for radicalization of the people.
Lack of clear structures
It is often difficult for authorities and secret services to keep radical Islamic killers on the radar, as, unlike in the past, they are barely integrated into larger structures, according to Riegler. The worst terrorist attack in decades was carried out in 1985 at the Vienna airport by Palestinian terrorists from the Abu Nidal Organization. They are said to have had close relations with the Iraqi, Libyan and Syrian secret services, Riegler says. “Austria was then able to influence them so that such attacks were not repeated,” he explains.
The killer killed at least four people before the police killed him.
The fact that secret service activity, as long as it was not directed against Austria, was not effectively stopped and, for example, the PLO was granted an office in Vienna in the late 1970s, guaranteed the country a certain degree of security for a long time. “But Islamist terrorists do not play by the rules and choose their victims at random.” For Austria, this means that its early protection strategies are less and less effective.
The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the Fight against Terrorism (BVT), an intelligence service with relatively limited powers, is responsible for combating terrorism in Austria. The BVT fell into decline last year due to raids under the leadership of the then right-wing populist ruling party FPÖ. As a result, the foreign secret services cut off some contacts because they feared infiltration from Russia. Riegler believes, however, that information sharing continues to work well, especially in the case of terrorist threats.
Local terrorism
Although the issue has largely disappeared from the media in recent years, the attack once again highlights the Austrian jihadist scene. The country had one of the highest proportions of jihad travelers in Europe. According to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, 320 people tried to travel to Iraq or Syria in recent years, including the perpetrator on Monday.
He was arrested in September 2018 in a Turkish border town. Later, he said in court that he had come to the wrong mosque and had problems with the school and his parents. According to experts, several mosques have close ties to the Salafi scene in the Western Balkans.
There is no doubt that the attack perpetrated by a local terrorist will further intensify discussions about integration and political Islam in Austria. These had already erupted in the summer when violent clashes broke out between Kurds and young Turks in Vienna-Favoriten. The current consensus among politicians not to be divided by the terrorists is unlikely to last.
