Saturday the Austrian intelligence agency he arrested three people accusing them of planning an attack on Pride in Vienna, the country’s capital. This was announced by the head of the Austrian intelligence agency, Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, during a press conference held on Sunday.
Haijawi-Pirchner explained that the arrested persons are three 14, 17 and 20-year-old Austrian boys of Chechen or Bosnian origin: the police arrested them before they carried out “preparatory actions” for an attack, Haijawi-Pirchner said. During some searches some weapons were found, including knives and air guns, with which according to the intelligence agency they wanted to attack the Pride participants. The communications of the three they had been under surveillance for some time, as they were suspected of holding radical Islamist views. Their arrest took place an hour before the start of the demonstration, around noon on Saturday.
At the moment no more details are known about the boys’ plans: the older one has already been released, while the two younger ones are in the prison of St. Pölten, a town west of Vienna. The Financial Times tells whereas after the killing of four people during an Islamist terrorist attack in Vienna in November 2020, Austrian intelligence has reformed and strengthened its counter-terrorism activities.