Everything we know so far about the Vienna terror attack
Austrian officials say gun rampage that left five people dead was inspired by Islamic State
![Armed police on the streets of Vienna](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/Yi8gk7CsLMNghzaixGDCLB-415-80.jpg)
Austrian police are hunting for at least one “heavily armed and dangerous” gunman following an attack in Vienna that left five people dead and more than a dozen injured, the authorities have confirmed.
Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said one of the attackers, who was shot dead by police, was an Islamic State sympathiser. The suspect “was armed with an assault rifle and wearing a fake suicide vest”, Sky News reports.
It remains unclear how many other attackers got away.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
![https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516-320-80.jpg)
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The shooting rampage began at 8pm local time, a few hours before new Covid-19 restrictions came into force. “Many people were out enjoying bars and restaurants which are now closed until the end of November,” says the BBC.
The first shots were fired “outside the main synagogue”, the first of “six locations in central Vienna” to be targeted, Reuters reports.
This morning, police officers are reviewing 20,000 videos of the attack that have been shared with the authorities by members of the public.
People have been asked not to post footage online, but “videos on social media showed at least four gunmen firing what looked like assault rifles indiscriminately as they advanced through the square”, The Times reports.
“One clip showed a gunman in a black hat and a white jacket shooting a bystander outside a shop and then returning to shoot the victim with a pistol.”
A spokesperson for Vienna’s health service “confirmed that they were dealing primarily with gunshot wounds, but also with stab wounds”, says The Guardian.
Two men and two women died in the attack, along with the gunman killed by police. A further seven people have life-threatening injuries, the Austria Press Agency reports, and ten more are in hospital with “moderate to minor injuries”.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Holden Frith is The Week’s digital director. He also makes regular appearances on “The Week Unwrapped”, speaking about subjects as diverse as vaccine development and bionic bomb-sniffing locusts. He joined The Week in 2013, spending five years editing the magazine’s website. Before that, he was deputy digital editor at The Sunday Times. He has also been TheTimes.co.uk’s technology editor and the launch editor of Wired magazine’s UK website. Holden has worked in journalism for nearly two decades, having started his professional career while completing an English literature degree at Cambridge University. He followed that with a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University in Chicago. A keen photographer, he also writes travel features whenever he gets the chance.
-
Quiz of The Week: 20 - 26 July
Puzzles and Quizzes Have you been paying attention to The Week's news?
By The Week Staff Published
-
The Week Unwrapped: The dark world of illicit gambling
Podcast Plus, the pension pot shortfall and Obama's silence on Harris
By The Week Staff Published
-
Leonora Carrington: Rebel Visionary – an exhibition of 'unearthly delights'
The 'captivating' show features over 70 pieces spanning everything from paintings to tapestries
By The Week UK Published
-
Iwao Hakamada: Japan's record-breaking death row prisoner
Under the Radar Former boxer spent 46 years condemned to execution but his retrial could clear his name
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
How strawberries are funding crime in Sweden
Under the Radar Police say illegal fruit sales turn over 'billions' of kronor a year for gangsters
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published
-
France's 'swinger' capital rocked by fortune teller scandal
Under the Radar Mayor charged with corruption for 'lavishing' taxpayers' money on clairvoyant who 'impersonated' his dead father
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Trump hush money trial: what has the jury heard?
Today's Big Question Former loyal fixer Michael Cohen proves star witness for prosecution, but Stormy Daniels's graphic testimony could offer grounds for appeal
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Weinstein's appeal: a blow to #MeToo
Talking Point Is 'shocking' reversal of symbolic conviction a sign of weakening movement?
By The Week UK Published
-
Do youth curfews work?
Today's big question Banning unaccompanied children from towns and cities is popular with some voters but is contentious politically
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Sydney mall attacker may have targeted women
Speed Read Police commissioner says gender of victims is 'area of interest' to investigators
By Julia O'Driscoll, The Week UK Published
-
Why are kidnappings in Nigeria on the rise again?
Today's Big Question Hundreds of children and displaced people are missing as kidnap-for-ransom 'bandits' return
By Julia O'Driscoll, The Week UK Published