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Arrests made after 'freed jihadist' kills four in Vienna

Austrian police have made 14 arrests after a gunman murdered four people in the heart of Vienna on the evening of 2 November.

Described as a 20-year-old Islamist terrorist who had been freed from jail last December, the attacker was shot dead by police as he fired on passers-by. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said the four who died were an elderly woman, an elderly man, a young man and a waitress. Another 22 people were wounded.

Following the incident, security has been tight in the Austrian capital as police launched a manhunt for any further attackers. However, authorities have now stated that they are confident that the gunman may have acted alone.

Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said there was no indication that a second assailant had been involved, though that could no be ruled out. Police were still assessing some 20,000 mobile phone videos of what happened.

Nehammer described the gunman as an ‘Islamist terrorist’ named Kujtim Fejzulai, who had been jailed for 22 months in April 2019 for trying to travel to Syria to join ISIS jihadists. He was released early in December under more lenient terms for young adults, after convincing the authorities that he no longer held extremist Islamist views, Nehammer said.

Unsurprisingly, ISIS has claimed that it was behind the attack, via a video on its online propaganda channel, although there is no clear evidence behind the claim.

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