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Austria was rocked Monday night by multiple shootings in Vienna in what police described as a major terrorist incident.
Police reported several injuries and at least one death in incidents in the capital, including an attack in front of the city’s main synagogue.
Video images sent to the Financial Times by eyewitnesses recorded dozens of shots being fired and heavily armed police response teams in the city center shortly before 8 pm Monday night.
Chancellor Sebastian Kurz ordered the deployment of the army to protect sensitive sites across the country after the attack.
“We are experiencing difficult times in our republic. . . our police will take decisive action against those responsible for this heinous terrorist attack. ” tweeted mr Kurz.
Authorities have closed all public transport in the city center and urged all residents to stay indoors.
Austrian policemen guard the Vienna State Opera © CHRISTIAN BRUNA / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock
Vienna Police tweeted that several men armed with rifles fired shots in six places in the city. One person died and several people were seriously injured, one of them a policeman. One of the gunmen had been shot and killed by the police.
A spokesman for the Austrian Interior Ministry told local news agency APA that there had been an arrest.
One of the places of the attack was Seitenstettengasse, which is where Vienna’s main synagogue, the Stadttempel, is located.
Oskar Deutsch, a leader of the Jewish community, said it was unclear whether the synagogue had been attacked. He said the Stadttempel and its adjoining office were closed at the time of the incident.
Karl Nehammer, Austria’s interior minister, told ORF television that the city was experiencing “an apparent terrorist attack” and warned that “the situation is still evolving.” “We assume there were several armed men,” he said. “Unfortunately, several people are injured and it is likely that some people have died.”
“Vienna is in a state of emergency,” said Andreas Peter, a local official with the city’s rescue service.
Viennese police patrol a street in the Austrian capital
Video images broadcast by broadcaster Oe24 showed masked gunmen shooting in the middle of a Vienna street and a pool of blood in front of a restaurant.
Emmanuel Macron, the French President, tweeted that France “shares the shock and pain of the Austrian people, struck tonight by an attack in the heart of its capital, Vienna.”
“After France it is a friendly country that is attacked,” he said. “This is our Europe. Our enemies must know who they are dealing with. We will not give them anything. “
He spoke just days after a man armed with a knife killed three people in a church in the southern French city of Nice in an apparent Islamist terrorist attack.
Last month, a Chechen refugee killed a French teacher, Samuel Paty, on the street in front of his school, claiming he was taking revenge for Paty showing two cartoons to students in a free speech lesson.
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