Austrian Islamist With Bosnian Roots Was Munich Shooter

I'm sorry, but when you open your borders to a hostile invasion as both Austria and Germany have, there are bound to be violent incidents.

From The European Conservative

By Zoltán Kottász

Austrian police had previously identified him as a suspected terrorist but failed to act on the information.

German authorities are treating a shooting near Munich’s Israeli consulate on Thursday, September 5th, as a “possible attack on an Israeli institution,” said state Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann.

The gunman, who was shot dead by police after he opened fire with a vintage rifle, was an 18-year-old Austrian man, said Munich police chief Thomas Hampel.

Der Verdächtige von #München ist tot. Das bestätigte das bayerische Innenministerium.

In den sozialen Medien ist ein Video aufgetaucht, das offenbar den Täter mit einer Langwaffe zeigt. pic.twitter.com/R4UZ48oDW8

— Lexa  (@rebew_lexa) September 5, 2024

The man was identified by German daily Bild as Emrah I. and is said to have Bosnian roots. Reuters writes he was an Austrian national who had recently travelled to Germany and lived in Austria’s Salzburg area near the border with Bavaria.

Last year, he was reported to the police on suspicion of being a member of a terrorist organisation and disseminating Islamic State propaganda. Though Austrian authorities did find Islamist propaganda on his mobile phone, the public prosecutor’s office dropped the case against him.

As we reported earlier, the shooting occurred in downtown Munich near a Nazi history museum and the Israeli General Consulate. Videos surfaced on social media platform X of the perpetrator walking about with the rifle in his hands. Other videos were taken from inside nearby buildings, with witnesses hearing shots fired.

According to media reports, the suspect drove to the scene of the crime in a car with Salzburg licence plates. He was captured on camera walking about with a long-barrelled gun, trying to smash a window and gain access to one of the buildings. The man later exchanged fire with the police who fatally shot him. Nobody else was injured, and police believe the suspect had no accomplices.

The motive of the gunman is not known but Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said police would try to clarify whether it had any link to the 1972 attack at the Munich Olympics anniversary.

The shooting happened on the anniversary (September 5th) of the Munich massacre, when members of the Palestinian terrorist organisation Black September infiltrated the Olympic Village in Munich, killed two members of the Israeli Olympic team, and took nine others hostage. The hostages were later killed in a failed rescue attempt.

The Israeli foreign ministry said their consulate was closed on Thursday for a commemoration of that massacre and that no one from the consulate staff was injured in the incident.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog wrote on X that he had discussed the incident with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier. “We expressed joint condemnation of the terrorist attack that took place this morning near the Israeli consulate in Munich,” he said.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser called the events a “serious incident,” and said that “the protection of Jewish and Israeli facilities, as you know, has the highest priority.”

The number of antisemitic incidents committed in Germany almost doubled in 2023 compared to the year before, according to a recent report. A total of 4,782 antisemitic incidents were recorded last year, an 80% increase on the previous year, with two-thirds of these cases occurring after October 7th, the day of Palestinian Hamas’s terror attack on Israel.

The danger posed by Islamist extremism in Germany, as well as many parts of Western Europe, has increased significantly following Hamas’s terror attack on Israel. Terrorists linked to the Islamic State have plotted many attacks in recent months, targeting churches and synagogues, and the Euro 2024 football tournament in Germany. The Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) said in the report earlier this year that “the risk of jihadist-motivated acts of violence remains high, Germany remains a direct target of terrorist organisations.”

Austrian intelligence thwarted a terror attack exactly a month ago, with Islamist teenagers planning a suicide attack at a Taylor Swift concert.