Austria calls stabbing that killed teen 'Islamist attack'

VILLACH(AUSTRIA): A stabbing that left a teenager dead and five other people injured in southern Austria was an "Islamist attack", the interior minister said on Sunday, with a 23-year-old Syrian asylum seeker held.

Saturday's attack in the city of Villach has shaken the Alpine nation after this week's collapse of government talks where immigration and security were major issues.

Austria had so far only seen one jihadist attack, in 2020, when a convicted Islamic State (IS) sympathiser went on a shooting rampage in downtown Vienna, killing four.

Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said on Sunday the suspect in the Villach attack --- a 23-year-old Syrian asylum seeker -- was radicalised online "in a short space of time".

"It is an Islamist attack with IS connections," Karner told reporters in Villach in Carinthia province.

During a raid of the suspect's apartment, police found "clear evidence of Islamist radical thought", such as IS flags on the wall, head of Carinthia police Michaela Kohlweiss said during the press conference.

She added police did not find weapons or "other dangerous items" in the apartment, adding the suspect was under investigation for "murder and attempted murder" charges.

In the attack in the centre of the city, a man went after passers-by with a folding knife, police said.

The Syrian was arrested just after the attack, which a fellow Syrian food deliverer, also an asylum seeker, stopped by ramming a car into the attacker, slightly injuring him.

A 14-year-old Austrian died, while five other men were hurt, with three of them admitted to intensive care though their conditions are stable.

Among the wounded are two other teens, both aged 15, while the oldest victim is 36 years old, police said.

The suspect is an asylum seeker with a valid residence permit and no criminal record, according to police.

At the site of the crime on a shopping street, residents were placing candles. Some hugged.

Local resident Tanja Planinschek told AFP at the site she was "afraid for my children".

"Not only I, but all of us have been afraid for a long time that something bigger will happen," she said, adding the country "should open our eyes and see whom we let in, whom we help, whom we leave with all kinds of freedoms. If nothing is done, it will get even worse."

Authorities praised those who helped, including the food deliverer who intervened in the attack, ramming his car into the attacker.

"This shows how closely evil, terrorism and the good, humane, lie together, even within the same nationality here in Austria," Carinthia province governor Peter Kaiser told reporters.

The deliverer, Alaaeddin Alhalabi, 42, told the Krone tabloid that he "didn't think twice" when intervening in the attack.

"He wanted to go towards the city centre, there were children on the street -- I couldn't let that happen," he said, adding he regretted he could not save the 14-year-old.

The Villach attack comes just two days after a suspected Afghan asylum seeker rammed a car into people in the city of Munich in neighbouring Germany, killing a two-year-old girl and her mother and wounding 37 other people.

A 24-year-old Afghan asylum seeker was arrested on suspicion of deliberately driving the car into a trade union demonstration. German police said he may have had Islamist extremist motives for the attack.

Austria's Karner said he wanted to have random "mass screenings... of special target groups, namely asylum seekers... with a Syrian or Afghan background" to try to prevent such attacks though he did not give further details how this could take place.

"Police simply need to get better possibilities... to ensure the safety of the people in this country," he said.

Far-right leader Herbert Kickl -- whose party topped September's national elections for the first time ever -- has called for "a rigorous clamp-down on asylum".

Kickl's Freedom Party (FPOe) this week failed in talks to form a government with the runner-up and incumbent conservatives because of disagreements -- among others -- over who would hold sensitive cabinet posts dealing with security.

Austria hosts a large Syrian refugee population of almost 100,000.

After Bashar al-Assad's ouster in Syria in December, Austria and several European countries froze pending asylum requests from Syrians to reassess the situation.

In addition, Austria has stopped family reunifications and sent out at least 2,400 letters to revoke refugee status.

The interior ministry has said it is preparing "an orderly repatriation and deportation programme to Syria".