Gunmen opened fire Monday on people enjoying a last evening out in Vienna before a coronavirus lockdown, in a terror attack that authorities said left at least three dead — including one of the attackers — and 14 wounded. At least one attacker was still at large as of 1 a.m. Tuesday local time.
“We are victims of a despicable terror attack in the federal capital that is still ongoing,” Austria’s Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said hours after the gunfire erupted.
“We will not never allow ourselves to be intimidated by terrorism and will fight these attacks with all means,” Kurz added on Twitter.
Police said that several shots were fired shortly after 8 p.m. (1900 GMT) on a lively street in the city center and that there were six shooting locations. Unverified footage on social media showed gunmen walking through the streets, apparently shooting at people at random, wounding several.
The motive was under investigation, but Kurz said the possibility it was an anti-Semitic attack cannot be ruled out, given that the shooting began outside Vienna’s main synagogue. It was closed at the time.
Austria’s top security official said that authorities believe there were several gunmen involved and that a police operation was still going on hours later.
At a press conference around 1am local time on Tuesday, Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said at least one attacker was still at large, with another assailant confirmed to be shot dead.
At the same press conference, the general director for public security Franz Ruf said there would be strengthened controls at Austria’s borders and police cordons in central Vienna.
Police warned Vienna residents to stay at home or “take shelter”. They said trams and buses weren’t stopping and urged social media users not to post videos of the police operation so as not to endanger officers.
Vienna Mayor Michael Ludwig said 15 people were hospitalized, seven with serious injuries. He later told public broacaster ORF that one woman hospitalised had died of her injuries, bringing the civilian death toll to two.
Oskar Deutsch, the head of the Jewish community in Vienna, said it was not clear whether the main synagogue had been targeted.
Rabbi Schlomo Hofmeister said he saw at least one person shoot at people sitting outside at bars in the street below his window.
“They were shooting at least 100 rounds just outside our building,” Hofmeister said.
“All these bars have tables outside. This evening is the last evening before the lockdown,” he added. “As of midnight, all bars and restaurants will be closed in Austria for the next month, and a lot of people probably wanted to use that evening to be able to go out.”
France’s President Emmanuel Macron tweeted that the French “share the shock and grief of the Austrian people hit by an attack tonight.”
“After France, this is a friendly country that has been attacked. This is our Europe ... We will not give in,” he wrote.
France has endured three attacks blamed on Muslim extremists in recent weeks: one by a Pakistani refugee that injured two people outside satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo’s old headquarters, the slaying of a schoolteacher who showed students caricatures of the prophet of Islam, and a deadly knife attack last Thursday in a church in the Mediterranean city of Nice.
Source: France24/AP/AFP
