Police in Austria have launched a manhunt after gunmen opened fire at multiple locations across central Vienna, killing at least four people and wounding several more in what Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz described as a “repulsive terror attack”.
“Sadly a fourth victim has died in a Vienna hospital, this brings the the death toll to two men and two women,” an interior ministry spokesman told AFP news agency.
World reacts with anger, solidarity after Vienna shootings
One of the suspected gunmen, identified as an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) group sympathiser, was shot dead by police who said they were searching for at least one more assailant still at large. Authorities identified him as a 20-year-old Austrian-North Macedonian dual national, who wanted travel to Syria to join the ISIL group.
Vienna’s hospital service said seven people were in life-threatening condition on Tuesday, the Austrian news agency APA reported. In total, 17 people – including a police officer – were being treated in hospitals, with gunshot wounds but also cuts.
“It is now confirmed that yesterday’s attack was clearly an Islamist terror attack,” Kurz said. “It was an attack out of hatred – hatred for our fundamental values, hatred for our way of life, hatred for our democracy in which all people have equal rights and dignity.”
The attacks, in six locations including near a synagogue in the centre of the city, were carried out by “several suspects armed with rifles”, police said on Monday night.
Authorities are still trying to determine whether further attackers may be on the run.
Interior Minister Karl Nehammer told APA that the dead gunman, who had roots in the Balkan nation of North Macedonia, had a previous conviction under a law that punishes membership in “terrorist” organisations.
The attacker, named as Kujtim Fejzulai, was sentenced to 22 months in prison in April 2019 because he had tried to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State group. He was granted early release in December under juvenile law.
Nehammer earlier said the attacker “sympathised with the militant terrorist group IS,” referring to ISIS, before urging the public to stay home in an early morning televised news conference on Tuesday.
Fifteen house searches have taken place and several people have been arrested, Nehammer said.
The attack began at about 8pm (19:00 GMT) on Monday, when several men armed with rifles opened fire – starting outside the city’s main synagogue – as many people took advantage of the last evening before a nationwide curfew took effect because of COVID-19.
“It sounded like firecrackers, then we realised it was shots,” said one eyewitness quoted by ORF.
A shooter had “shot wildly with an automatic weapon” before police arrived and opened fire, the witness added.
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Officials said schools would be closed on Tuesday.
Frequent sirens and helicopters could be heard as emergency services responded to the shootings, and a large area of central Vienna was cordoned off.
Thomas Mayer, the European Editor at Austria’s Der Standard newspaper, told Al Jazeera that “there are police everywhere and the city centre is closed”.
“The problem is there are so many people who went to restaurants and bars to have some joy in the last evening before lockdown (and now) these people cannot go home,” he added.
“We are experiencing difficult hours in our republic,” Kurz said on Twitter shortly after the attacks, adding that the army would protect sites in the capital so the police could focus on anti-terror operations.
“Our police will act decisively against the perpetrators of this repulsive terror attack,” he said. “We will never be intimidated by terrorism and we will fight this attack with all means”.
The assailants, Kurz later told ORF, were “very well prepared” and “very well equipped, with automatic weapons”.
‘At least 100 rounds or even more’
While the shootings began near Vienna’s main synagogue, Jewish community leader Oskar Deutsch said on Twitter that it was not clear whether the synagogue and adjoining offices had been the target.
He added that they were closed at the time.
Rabbi Schlomo Hofmeister told London’s LBC radio he was in the compound of the synagogue when the attack took place.
“Upon hearing shots, we looked down [from] the windows and saw the gunmen shooting at the guests of the various bars and pubs,” he said.
“The gunmen were running around and shooting at least 100 rounds or even more in front of our building,” he said.
