German police raid flats, offices in several towns over Vienna attack

Sites belong to people who are not suspects in terrorist killings, but ‘there may be links to the alleged assassin’

German police said Friday they are raiding apartments and offices over possible links to the Austrian Islamic State sympathizer who went on a deadly gun rampage in central Vienna.

The sites in Osnabrueck, Kassel as well as in the Pinneberg area that were searched belong to four people, who “are not believed to be involved in the attack,” said the federal criminal agency (BKA).

“But there may be links to the alleged assassin,” it added on Twitter.

The searches were carried out on a request from Austrian authorities, the BKA added.

The gunman, identified as 20-year-old dual Austrian-Macedonian national Kujtim Fejzulai, was killed by police after going on a shooting spree in Vienna on Monday evening that left four people dead.

Austrian police detained 14 people in the wake of the terrorist shooting, the first major attack in the country for decades and the first blamed on a jihadist.

In a video distributed by the Islamic State terror group, Vienna attacker Kujtim Fejzulai pledges allegiance to IS caliph Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, while holding a gun and a long, serrated knife. (Screenshot)

Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine had reported earlier this week that the Vienna attacker had made contact with German Islamists during an attempt to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State group.

The investigation has also led to Switzerland, where prosecutors have confirmed that two Swiss men aged 18 and 24 who were arrested Wednesday had already been the targets of criminal cases over terrorism offenses.