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ISLAM

Syria ‘more free’ than Vienna says teen jihadist

One of the two Viennese teenage girls who is believed to have joined the jihadists in Syria, denied wanting to return home, according to a SMS interview with the French magazine Paris Match.

Published: 27 October 2014 10:08 CET
Syria 'more free' than Vienna says teen jihadist
Sabina Selimovic, 15 and friends. Photo: Private
15-year-old Sabina Selimovic denied being pregnant, and reported that she felt "free" in her new home.
 
The interview was conducted via SMS, and carried out under the supervision of her husband, according to the magazine.
 
She reportedly said that she and her 17-year-old friend Samra Kesinovic walked over the border from Turkey, taking nothing more than their clothes with them.
 
She said that she and her friend lived with their new husbands, jihadist fighters, for two months in the same house, and then each pair had moved into an apartment.
 
She and her husband now live in a three bedroom apartment.
 
The man whom she said was her husband was a "soldier", she said.
 
When asked what was the biggest difference between living in Austria and in Syria, Selimovic said "Here I am free. I can practice my religion freely. In Vienna, I could not." 
 
The two Viennese girls disappeared on April 10th. According to their parents, Bosnian refugees who arrived in the 1990s to Austria, they announced that they wanted to join the fight in Syria for Islam.
 
In recent weeks, media reports suggested that the girls now want to return to Austria.
 
According to Interpol, the two girls are still listed as missing.  There was no independent verification of the identity of the person being interviewed, nor confirmation that the interview wasn't given under duress.

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TERRORISM

What is the risk of new terror attacks in Austria?

Following the March 22nd attack in Moscow’s Crocus City Hall that left over 140 dead, European governments are evaluating the threat of terror attacks. Is Austria a target for fresh terrorist attacks?

Published: 28 March 2024 12:32 CET
What is the risk of new terror attacks in Austria?

With responsibility for the Moscow attack being taken by the Islamist terror organisation ISIS-K, national intelligence services are reevaluating the threat posed to targets within their borders. 

‘No concrete threat’

Austrian officials have been quick to give their appraisal of the situation. 

“We currently have the Islamist scene under control,” stressed Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, head of the Directorate of State Security & Intelligence (DSN) – the governmental agency responsible for combatting internal threats – in an interview with the Ö1 Morgenjournal radio programme on Tuesday. 

He continued: “The terrorist attacks in Moscow, for example, definitely increase the risk. But at the moment, we do not see any concrete threat of an attack in Austria,”

Other experts and officials have warned that while there are no concrete threats, Austrians should not be complacent. 

‘Situation is still valid’ 

Interior Minister Gerhard Karner announced tighter security at church festivals during the Easter period, in the days after the attack, and stressed that the high terror alert level introduced after the October 7 Hamas attacks was still in place. 

“This increased risk situation is still valid,” noted Karner.

READ MORE: What does Austria’s raised terror alert mean for the public?

Meanwhile, terror researcher Peter Neumann of King’s College London told ORF’s ‘ZiB 2’ news broadcast on Monday that Austria remains a potential target due to its Central Asian migrant population. 

Neumann noted that countries at most risk are those “in which Tajik and Central Asian diasporas exist and where ISIS-K finds it relatively easy to identify and recruit people”. 

He continued, identifying both Austria and Germany as “countries in which the ISPK is particularly active and which are particularly at risk from terrorist attacks”.

New threats

Austria has not been spared from attacks from homegrown terrorists.

On November 2nd 2020, amid Coronavirus lockdowns, Austrian-born Kujtim Fejzulai shot and killed four, injuring twenty-three others during a shooting spree across Vienna. He was ultimately shot dead by police. 

Fejzulai was already under surveillance by federal authorities for his beliefs and had been released from prison on parole less than a year before. 

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