Extremism: Connection plan at Wiener Bahnhof – Note from Germany

According to Austria, Austria’s constitutional protector prevents a planned Islamist attack on the Vienna Westbahnhof. The suspect is a 14-year-old Austrian who was arrested on February 10, as the Interior Ministry announced.

The German Federal Criminal Police Office had become aware of the boy on the Videoplattform TIKTOK and informed Austrian investigators, as the German Press Agency learned. The Austrian Ministry of the Interior did not comment on the cooperation. But it announced that the suspicious Islamist content spread on Tiktok.

The youngsters’ plans were very concrete, the ministry said. During a house search, sketches of attacks with knives and machetes were found on a train station and on police officers. Instructions for the production of explosive material were also ensured, which, from the investigator’s point of view, was to serve as a detonator for a bomb. Aluminum pipes and knives were also discovered during the house search.

Lawyer: No impending attack planned

According to the 14-year-old’s lawyer, Anna Mair, he had dealt with these topics, but not decided on an act. “I think the plans were quite serious, but were not about to be implemented,” she told the dpa. According to his own statements, the boy has been radicalized on Tikok since last summer, she said. On Saturday, a 23-year-old Syrian had attacked people in the Austrian city of Villach with a knife and killed a young person and injured several people. In this case, too, investigators assume that this suspect radicalized Islamistically through the consumption of extremist tictok videos. The Syrian was taken into custody on Wednesday.

The young Austrian, who is suspected, planned to have planned an attack on a concert by Taylor Swift in Vienna last summer, had also dealt online with relevant content.