Knife attack in Villach had Islamist motif

The knife attack of a Syrian in Austria, in which a teenager was killed, had an Islamist background, according to Interior Minister Karner. FPÖ and ÖVP reacted to the crime with migration policy demands.

According to the investigators, the knife attack in Villach, Austria with a fatality and several injuries, has been committed by an “Islamist assassin”. “This is an Islamist attack with IS cover,” Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said to journalists in the city in the state of Carinthia. IS is the abbreviation for the terrorist militia Islamic State. The 23-year-old Syrian apparently radicalized on the Internet in a short time, said the minister.

The man had attacked several passers-by with a knife in Villach yesterday and killed a 14-year-old. Five people were injured, the police said. The man had “started to passers -by” with a knife. Witnesses of the crime had reported that the man had called “Allahu Akbar” (God is great).

The Syrian has a residence permit for Austria. So far, he had apparently not noticed the police.

A 42-year-old meal deliverer who also comes from Syria watched the crime. He had hit the Syrian with his car and thus held the attacker from further acts, reported police spokesman Rainer Dionisio. “This meant that we were able to arrest him right away,” he said.

In the tumult, other eyewitnesses initially thought that the meal deliverer was an attacker and hit his car, as he explained to the “small newspaper”. “Of course I am now worried that people think bad about us, but we are not that,” said the man about his Syrian compatriots in Austria.

Requirements for harder asylum policy

Politicians reacted to the fact with horror: “We need rigoroses in the asylum area and must not import our states as in Villach,” said FPÖ boss Herbert Kickl. The right -wing populist spoke of a “first -class system failure” and again campaigned for his restrictive migration policy.

One must “set all the levers in motion politically that such horror acts can be prevented in the future,” said Christian Stocker, head of the ruling ÖVP.

The attack falls into a time of political upheaval in Austria. In the parliamentary elections last September, the right FPÖ became the strongest party. Negotiations between FPÖ and the conservative ÖVP to form a coalition government failed in the middle of the week.