The knife attack in the Austrian city of Villach, which resulted in one fatality and several injuries, was carried out by an “Islamist attacker,” Interior Minister Gerhard Karner has told journalists, citing the investigators.
“This is an Islamist attack with links to [Islamic State],” Karner said on Sunday in the southern Austrian city in the state of Carinthia near the borders with Italy and Slovenia.
The perpetrator is believed to have radicalized himself on the internet in a short period of time, the minister added.
According to the police, a 23-year-old Syrian is suspected of stabbing passers-by indiscriminately in Villach city centre on Saturday afternoon. A 14-year-old boy died and five other people were injured in the attack, with three of the victims receiving intensive medical treatment.
The weapon used was a folding knife with a 10-centimetre blade, the police said.
The attack was stopped by a food delivery driver who ran his vehicle into the suspect. Shortly thereafter, the attacker was arrested by the police.
In the chaos, other eyewitnesses initially thought the food delivery driver was an attacker and consequently hit his car, the man told the newspaper Kleine Zeitung. The 42-year-old driver is also from Syria.
“Of course I am now worried that people will think badly of us, but we are not like that,” he said of his fellow Syrians in Austria.
The attack in Villach occurred two days after the Munich attack, which resulted in two deaths and dozens of injuries. German investigators also believe that the attack in Munich by a 24-year-old suspect from Afghanistan has an Islamist background.
