On Saturday, Austrian police foiled a planned terror attack on a gay pride parade in Vienna. The would-be attackers are three males, ages 14, 17, and 20. They are described as ISIS followers and Austrian citizens of Bosnian and Chechen origin.
The below article from today's Krone Zeitung (Austria) is translated by Fousesquawk.
June 18, 2023 at 12:25 Domestic-Vienna
Three men in custody
Terror attack on rainbow parade prevented
Caption: Police prevented an attack on rainbow parade in Vienna
The Vienna Pride 2023, which celebrated its climax Saturday with a rainbow parade, would have been the target of an attack, as the Vienna police announced on Sunday in a hastily called press conference. There are three arrests.
An Islamist group allegedly chose the big event as the target of the attack. However, it was possible to thwart the plans of the extremists. For participants in the parade, there was, "at no time, a specific danger," the director of State Security and Intelligence Service (DSN), Omar Haijawi-Pirchner stressed.
Director of State Security and Intelligence Service, Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, and State Police President Gerhard Puersti.
Radicalized Austrians in custody
The suspects, who are all in the St Poelten prison, are three young Austrians with Bosnian and Chechen roots respectively. The boys are 14, 17, and 20 years old.
All three were radicalized on the Internet (and) sympathized with the Islamic State. One of the suspects was reportedly already known to the police in connection with terrorist acts. Indications of weapons purchases abroad were also received.
The men were under observation
The DSN received information in advance about the alleged plans of the young suspects, and kept them "under constant surveillance", as Haijawi-Pircnher further explained. Thus, well before the rainbow parade the Cobras carried out house searches which led to the discovery of various items of evidence and ultimately to the arrests prior to the big event. Among other things seized from the men were sabers, axes, airguns, knives, and spiked metal throwing disks (see above image). Cell phones and computers were also found, which now have to be analyzed.
Caption: With these weapons, the men wanted to carry out the attack on the rainbow parade in Vienna.
The evidentiary material currently suggests that the ISIS followers had planned to carry out an attack using "knives, weapons, or a vehicle". One of the suspects reportedly owns a car.
Avoid the spread of panic
The organizer of the rainbow parade was deliberately only made aware of the attack plans on Sunday morning in order to "avoid fear, alarm, and panic reactions," as the Security chief explained. Because that would be what the terrorists wanted to achieve, and it is "our task not to let that happen".
The LGBTIQ community, in particular, is an intense enemy target for extremists, and that's why the Vienna Pride event organizer, Katherina Kacerovsky-Strobl, hopes to "be in a better position together with the city of Vienna in regards to such dangers".
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