Terror invades peaceful Vienna

The attacks in the heart of Vienna by assailants firing assault rifles from six locations left no doubt about Islamist terrorists’ determination to use the cover of Europe’s second COVID-19 wave to unleash religious warfare. Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer warned on Monday night his country’s freedom was under attack from Islamist terrorists, specifically Islamic State. Police said four people, including a terrorist, were killed. At least 15 people were wounded, some critically. Closed-circuit television footage reportedly showed attackers shouting “Allahu akbar” (God is most great) as they sprayed gunfire at crowds in busy streets near Vienna’s main synagogue. In a message of solidarity to Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, Scott Morrison expressed Australians’ shock and concern.

The onslaught followed last week’s beheading of the sacristan and the fatal stabbing of two worshippers at Nice’s Notre Dame Basilica. That atrocity, by a 21-year-old Tunisian man who arrived in September in Lampedusa, Italy’s main landing point for African migrants, has reopened debate about activists such as Pope Francis, who has visited Lampedusa, pushing for open borders. A Greek Orthodox priest was shot twice in the chest in Lyons last week. And last month history teacher Samuel Paty was decapitated in Paris after he showed students cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed from satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Other incidents flared in Austria. A 19-year-old Afghan man was arrested for punching a 76-year-old nun in the face in a bus. And 30 to 40 young Turks attacked a Catholic Church in Vienna’s Favoriten district, shouting “Allahu akbar” and kicking over pews.

Judaism, Christianity and liberal democracy are anathema to jihadists, whose hatreds predate the defeat of the Ottoman invaders of Europe at the Battle of Vienna. That famous conflict ended on September 11 and 12, 1683. Amid COVID lockdowns, anti-terror vigilance has become paramount.