The November 2 terrorist attack in Vienna

As if the Presidential Election Day in the US wasn'g enough of a crisis moment, there was a terrorist attack in Vienna late Monday night.

The incident took place in the vicinity of a larage synagogue called the City Temple in Vienna in the Schwedenplatz area, right in the inner-city. (For those not familiar with Vienna, the inner city is a very affluent area and a center for tourism.)

As of this writing, it appears from the various news reports that several attackers with long guns, presumably automatic or semi-automatic, fired randomly at people in restaurants. This was just hours before new COVID-19 restriction were to go into effect requiring restaurants and bars to close at 8:00PM, so there may have been more people than usual out to have a last evening meal in a restaurant before the lockdown. At least one of the attackers had some kind of Muslim extremist background, supposedly an Islamic State (IS) sympathizer. This loks like a political attack, not just a couple of "incels" looking for revenge on the world. But not a lot is known publicly about the actual motives. The location near the synagogue suggests that there could be a specific anti-Semitic motive involved. But the synagogue itself was closed. The goal seemed to be to kill people, not specifically to attack the synagogue building.

Although the Vienna police say they are assuming more than one attacker is involved, the major news outlets are confirming only one at this point. There were six locations in close vicinity to each other that were attacked. But so far only the one killer who was himself killed by police is confirmed. The Oberösterreicische Nachrichten identifies him as "Kujtim F." He had been convinced last year of attempting to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State and served several months in jail.

This kind of incident brings all kinds of cranks and bigots out from the woodwork. So I'm sure various fever-swamp reports are circulating on social media and shady websites already. The Chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, is the leader of the conservative party (ÖVP) and is famous for his obsession with Message Control; the press normally uses the English phrase when referring to it. The Interior Minister (responsible for internal security affairs) is Karl Nehammer is a standard-issue conservative from Kurz' party, so we can expect that information coming from those two will be carefully calibrated for their preferred political spin, although I would assume (in a trust-but-verify sense) that they will provide factually accurate information.

Kurz is already calling this a "fight between civilization and barbarism," which strikes me at first glance as a ridiculous level of threat inflation at a moment when his own government is confirming only a single 20-year-old attacker. He also said it was motivated by "hatred of our model of life," whatever that may mean.

Here's my summary of some of the news articles as of late morning Tuesday. These are still early reports, so better information will be availalbe later.

Täter hatte islamistischen Hintergrund ORF 03.11.2020 (9:53AM):

Five people dead, including one of the attackers. Seven people were wounded and were in critical condition. At least 10 others were treated for injuries in the hospital. Based on information from the Interior Ministry, the goal of the attack was to spread panic. One attacker was known to be an IS sympathizer who was connected with people already being investigated. The Interior Minister, Karl Nehammer, is being cagey about even whether other suspects are being sought. Several people have been arrested.

Vier Tote bei islamistischem Terroranschlag in Wien Standard 03.11.2020 (11:00AM): The attacker who was killed is described in this report: "He was a 20-year-old IS supporter with a North Macedonian background – he had both Austrian and North Macedonian citizenship. In 2019, he was sentenced to 22 months in prison for trying to travel to Syria to join IS [Islamic State]."

The Vienna police are reporting multiple attackers, though the Interior Ministry is definitively speaking of only one at this point.

Terroranschlag in Wien - Täter war vorbestrafter IS-Sympathisant Wiener Zeitung 03.11.2020 (10:27AM):

This report is cautiously stressing that so far they can confirm only one attacker: "It is still not entirely clear whether the assassin killed was a lone attacker or whether accomplices are still on the run."

Experte: Wien ist einfaches Ziel für Anschlag ORF 03.11.2020 (10:29AM):

Terrorism experts, whose business it is to worry about things not being safe enough, are beginning to weigh in, Nicolas Stockhammer of the University of Vienna in this case. He assumes "assumes that the attack was actually planned for a later date and was carried out sooner than planned due to the impending lockdown." Although why he assumes that, the article doesn't say. It's an obvious guess since it happened a couple of hours before the lockdown measures became official, but who knows?