KNIFE BLOODBATH
Syrian asylum seeker charged with murder after boy killed & five injured in horror ‘Islamist’ knife rampage in Austria
A hero driver was praised by officials for stopping the attacker with a life-saving act
A SYRIAN asylum seeker has been charged with murder after a 14-year-old boy was stabbed to death in a knife rampage in Austria.
Officials say the 23-year-old was motivated by "Islamic terrorism" before his alleged role in the bloodbath attack that left five others injured.
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Three of the people caught up in the frenzied assault in the town of Villach were rushed to hospital in a critical condition on Saturday.
They are all believed to still be in intensive care as of this morning.
All five survivors are aged between 15 and 36 with one being Turkish and the others Austrian citizens, police spokesman Rainer Dionisio said.
Images of a suspectbeing arrested show him with smirking with his index finger raised in air as armed police surrounded him.
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Police later confirmed a man had been charged with murder, as well as five counts of attempted murder.
Austria's Interior Minister Gerhard Karner arrived in Villach to address locals on Sunday morning and said officials believe the attacker was a suspected Islamist.
He confirmed the suspect is thought to have become involved with terror group Islamic State (IS) "in a short space of time" after being radicalised online.
It comes as terrified witnesses reported hearing the alleged knifeman shout "Allahu Akbar" before lunging at his first victim.
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Investigators also discovered an IS flag inside the suspect's apartment, according to state police chief Michaela Kohlweiss.
She confirmed that cops also believe the man swore allegiance to the terror regime.
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Regional Governor Peter Kaiser described the incident as an "unimaginable atrocity".
Austria's president Alexander Van der Bellen labelled the attack "horrific".
He added in a heartfelt social media tribute to the victims: "No words can undo the suffering, the horror, the fear."
The killer first started their deadly rampage at around 4pm local time (3pm GMT) near the town's main square.
Alaaeddin Alhalabi, a 42-year-old who works for a food delivery company, witnessed the incident from his car and heroically helped to stop the attacker.
He bravely drove directly into the suspect to scare him away from the fleeing locals, police spokesperson Rainer Dionisio told Austria's public broadcaster ORF.
The driver, also said to be Syrian, was praised by Austrian authorities for his life-saving attempts to fend off the deadly attacker.
Police officers arrived at the scene less than 10 minutes after the first stabbing.
Two female cops placed the suspect in handcuffs before taking him to the station to be interrogated late into the evening, police said.
Police confirmed he is a 23-year-old Syrian male who lived locally.
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He had a temporary residence permit and was waiting for a final decision to be made on his asylum application.
Billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk also shared an image of the suspect as he described the situation as "terrible" on X.
It comes after a mum and her child tragically died from serious injuries after a suspected Islamist terrorist rammed his Mini Cooper into a crowd in Munich.
The woman, 37, and her two-year-old daughter were among the 39 injured in the "shocking attack" said to be carried out by a rejected Afghan asylum seeker.
The Mini Cooper is said to have "sped up" and ploughed into the back of around 1,500 Verdi demonstrators - a Berlin-based German trade union - on Seidlstrasse in Munich on Thursday.
The suspected attack came just hours before the Munich Security Conference that started on Friday, with US Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arriving at the summit to speak.
Police said the suspect is a 24-year-old Afghan asylum seeker who, the region's interior minister added, was known to cops in relation to drug and theft incidents.
News website says the suspect is a Kabul-born man named Farhad Noori.
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He is said to have posted Islamist content on social media before the heinous incident.
The suspected attack is thought not to be connected to the Munich Security Conference.
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