March 16, 2018
An Austrian Muslim attacked an Austrian soldier in a guard shack outside the Vienna home of Iran’s ambassador Sunday night, stabbing the guard repeatedly before the guard shot him dead.
The attacker never got passed the guard and never got on to the diplomatic property. The Iranian media, however, said the man had attacked the ambassador’s residence.
Iran complained. Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi demanded that the Austrian government “pay more attention to the safety of Iranian diplomatic sites in the country.” The ambassador’s home has a 24-hour armed guard, more security than most countries assign.
The Vienna police said the 23-year-old soldier was on duty outside the ambassador’s residence when the attacker assaulted him, coming at him with a knife. The soldier first used pepper spray, as he is instructed to do. When the attacker did not back off, the soldier fired four shots, killing the attacker on the spot.
The police said the soldier was gashed on his left upper arm. But he was wearing body armor so the knife did no injury to his torso.
The attacker was described as a 26-year-old man born in Vienna to a family of Egyptian origins. The police said they had raided his Vienna home looking for evidence of a motive but had so far made no conclusions. One official said he “clearly had sympathy with political Islam.” The Defense Ministry said the man did conscript service in 2012 and was registered as a devout Muslim.
The Kurier newspaper said the man lived with his parents and followed a German Salafist preacher on Facebook. It said he was also a fan of a Facebook group that pressed for the “release of Sunni prisoners” held in Iran.
Earlier this month, four people were stabbed in two separate knifing incidents in Vienna, making for an unusual rash of knife attacks It isn’t known if there are any links.
