Austrian police have arrested three young people suspected of planning an attack on the Pride March in Vienna, which gathered hundreds of thousands of people on Saturday, official sources learned on Sunday June 18.
The three men, aged 14, 17 and 20 and suspected of being sympathizers of the jihadist organization Islamic State (IS), were arrested before the start of the demonstration, according to the head of the Austrian intelligence agency , Omar Haijawi-Pirchner. The latter clarified that no threat had weighed on those who participated in this Pride March in the center of Vienna.
The individuals arrested “shared extremist content on the internet. In this context, the suspects focused on the Pride March as a potential target,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
During arrests on Saturday, the authorities discovered weapons and other evidence against these three Austrians of Chechen and Bosnian origins, one of whom was already known to the police. They had planned to use “bladed weapons or vehicles” at the event, police told reporters.
Some 300,000 people took part in this march for LGBT rights. In November 2020, an IS sympathizer opened fire in central Vienna, killing 4 people and injuring 23 others before being shot dead by police. It was the first jihadist attack in Austria.
