Austria carries out anti-terror raids as Macron pushes for European response to threat

Police carried out extensive raids across much of Suatria

Credit: ERWIN SCHERIAU/AFP

Police in Austria carried out out extensive anti-terror raids on Monday, searching 60 properties suspected of links to the Muslim Brotherhood and the Palestinian group Hamas.

The raids came a week after four people were killed and 22 injured in an Islamic State terror attack in Vienna.

They also came as President Emmanuel Macron of France announced plans to host a video summit with the leaders of Austria, Germany and the EU on Tuesday on “the European response to the terrorist threat”.

Prosecutors stressed the early morning raids across three Austrian states on Monday were not linked to last week’s terror attack in Vienna.

They were the culmination of a year-long investigation by Austrian intelligence and were planned long before Kujtim Fejzulai opened fire on people enjoying a last night out before a new coronavirus lockdown, a spokesman said.

But they are likely to be seen as the response of Austrian authorities stung by criticism over their failure to identify Fejzulai, who had previously been jailed for seeking to join Isil, as a terror threat.

The high-profile raids targeted the homes, businesses and club premises of 70 people suspected of links to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

Thirty people were held for questioning and mobile phones, computers and documents were seized. Considerable assets “amounting to millions” were also seized, according Franz Ruf, the Austrian government’s head of public security,

“We are taking action against these criminal, extremist and inhuman organizations with the utmost severity and all possible means of the rule of law,” Karl Nehammer, the Austrian interior minister, said. “This is an important blow against the breeding ground of extremism.”

The raids come a week after Kujtim Fejzulai killed four in an attack claimed by Islamic State

Mr Nehammer, who came under intense criticism over the intelligence failures in the lead-up to last week’s attack, took the unusual step of being personally present for some of the raids.

Austrian officials claimed the raids were the result of an undercover operation disclosed by Herbert Kickl, a far-Right former interior minister, last week.

Mr Kickl alleged Fajezulai’s attack had been prompted when the operation’s cover was blown — a charge Austrian authorities deny.

Austria had largely escaped the wave of jihadist terror attacks across Europe until last week, and the raids are a sign of concern there may be more extensive extremist networks in the country than previously thought.

Police believe Fejzulai carried out the attack alone but there are growing suspicions he had accomplices. Investigators have focused on how he travelled undetected from his home in the Vienna suburbs to the city centre armed with an assault rifle, handgun and machete, and believe he may have been given a lift.

Meanwhile President Macron of France signalled a new initiative to develop a European response to the terror threat with a video conference planned for Tuesday.

Mr Macron and Sebastian Kurz, the Austrian chancellor, will hold video talks with Germany’s Angela Merkel, Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the European Commission, and Charles Michel, the president of the European Council.

In the wake of last week’s attack Mr Kurz called for a new European anti-terror pact and Italy called for a US-style Patriot Act to enhance police powers and cross-border cooperation.