'Laughing' Syrian asylum seeker who stabbed boy, 14, to death was motivated by 'Islamic terrorism'
16 February 2025, 07:37 | Updated: 16 February 2025, 13:50
A Syrian asylum seeker accused of stabbing six people in southern Austria in broad daylight, killing a 14-year-old boy, was motivated by "Islamic terrorism", officials have said.
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The man, 23 and referred to by local media as “Ahmad G”, was detained in the city of Villach, where the attack took place, police said.
He is a Syrian national with legal residence in Austria.
Interior minister Gerhard Karner told reporters in Villach that the attacker had ties to the Islamic State group and radicalised himself online within a very short time period.
Chilling images shared online show the suspect, who had ISIS flags on his apartment wall, smiling and “laughing” as police approached him.
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The suspect allegedly shouted something as he began slashing at passersby just before 4pm on Saturday afternoon.
The victims were all male. Two were seriously injured and two sustained minor injuries, police said. Later on Saturday, police said a fifth person, also a man, was injured in the attack.
A 42-year-old man heroically stepped in to stop the horror attack by driving his food delivery truck towards the knifeman, police spokesman Rainer Dionisio told Austria's public broadcaster ORF.
State governor Peter Kaiser thanked the man, also a Syrian, working for a food delivery company who drove towards the suspect and helped prevent the situation from worsening.
"This shows how closely terrorist evil but also human good can be united in one and the same nationality," he said.
Police said it was not clear whether the man acted on his own and therefore they were searching for potential further suspects.
Peter Kaiser, the governor of the Austrian province of Carinthia, expressed his condolences to the family of the 14-year-old.
"This outrageous atrocity must be met with harsh consequences. I have always said with clarity and unambiguously, those who live in Carinthia, in Austria, have to respect the law and adjust to our rules and values."
Erwin Angerer, an MP for the far-right Freedom Party, said his party had been warning about the situation in Austria as a result of the country's "disastrous asylum policy".
According to one German journalist at the scene, people were left a German journalist “crying and shaking” on the ground after the attack.
“A person was lying on the street and a young man was taken away by the police,” Sandra Demmelhuber said.
“People were sitting on the ground, crying and shaking. Details still unclear,” she added.
Police spokesman Rainer told local broadcaster ORF-Kärnten that the man "indiscriminately attacked several passers-by with the knife".
He added: "We can't rule anything out. We'll shed light on the circumstances and try to get urgent information to come up with a possible motive.
"At the moment, one can only speculate, and we as police are not allowed to do that. That's why we have to wait until we have secured information.”
Within hours of the attack, Elon Musk, who has thrown his support behind several far-right parties across Europe, slammed the continent's immigration policies.
He shared a post by hard-right Dutch political commentator Eva Vlaardingerbroek on social platform X.
“It happened again. This Syrian migrant stabbed a 14 y/o Austrian boy to death and injured 5 others today in Villach, Austria,” Vlaardingerbroek's tweet read.
“He proudly smiles after the fact. I wasn't exaggerating when I said this happens daily in Europe: A one-sided civil war is waged on us Europeans.”
According to the ministry of the interior, 24,941 foreigners applied for asylum in Austria in 2024. The largest group of applicants came from Syria, followed by Afghanistan.
Over the past two years, the number of asylum seekers has decreased significantly. In 2022, applications peaked at more than 100,000, while about 59,000 individuals sought asylum in 2023.
Several European countries, among them Austria, said in December they are suspending decisions on asylum claims by Syrian nationals because of the unclear political situation in their homeland after the fall of Bashar Assad.
