A 76-year-old nun was assaulted on a bus in the multicultural city of Graz, Austria, according to reports. An Afghan migrant has been arrested.
The elderly sister was struck so hard in the head that her hearing aid was knocked to the floor, with the assailant fleeing the bus shortly afterwards.
The suspect, 19, was previously known to the authorities for a past history of assault and drug offences, according to the Catholic News Agency, and confessed to the crime — although the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counter-Terrorism which apprehended him is yet to establish a clear motive.
The attack came around the same time as another anti-Catholic incident in which an Afghan migrant was arrested for bursting into St Stephen’s Cathedral in the Austrian capital of Vienna shouting “Islamic slogans”, which itself followed an incident in which around 50 youths of Turkish extraction swarmed into the city’s St Anthony of Padua church chanting “Allahu Akbar” and kicking confessionals and pews.
These incidents came before the far more serious terrorist attack in Vienna on Monday night, however, which appears to have involved at least one previously convicted radical Islamic terrorist, named by the authorities as Kujtim F.
Kutjim F., believed to be of Albanian heritage, was able to participate in the attack, which involved multiple “heavily armed” and “very professional” gunmen striking at several locations, because he had been released early from prison — as had also been the case with some of the radical Islamic terrorists who have struck in Britain in recent years, including London Bridge killer Usman Khan and Streatham knifeman Sudesh Amman.
“He was equipped with a dummy explosive belt, an automatic rifle, a handgun, and a machete to carry out this disgusting attack on innocent citizens,” said Austrian interior minister Karl Nehammer of the attacker, who was “neutralised” by the authorised.
Two and two women are confirmed to have died in the attack so far, with 17 others injured, including seven in critical condition. t is thought that a number of the perpetrators are still at large, with neighbouring states such as Czechia announcing they are attempting to set up some makeshift border checks — not easy, due to the European Union having dismantled most of its member-states’ internal frontiers via the controversial Schengen Agreement.