The man who shot four people in a firing rampage in Vienna on Monday had asked to join the so-called Islamic State (IS) and most likely acted alone, Austrian police said on Tuesday.
Police have identified the gunman, who was carrying an assault rifle and a fake suicide vest, as Austrian-North Macedonian dual national Kujtim Fejzula.
He was shot dead by police.
The 20-year old had earlier served time in jail following an April 2019 opinion for an attempt to travel to Syria to join IS.
He was given an early discharge from his 22-month jail term in December under juvenile law, police said.
Authorities had originally feared that multiple killers were included in the attack, but Interior Minister Nehammer told reporters early in the afternoon that data gave no indication there had been other assailants.
He added that 14 people close to the presumed perpetrator had been detained and that 18 homes in and around the Austrian capital had been searched.
Two men, aged 18 and 24, were also arrested near Zurich, Swiss police have said.
Four people — two men and two women — were killed in what Chancellor Sebastian Kurz a “defensive terrorist attack” as citizens of the capital had a final night out before the city entered a partial coronavirus lockdown. One of the victims was a German national, Germany’s Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, verified on Twitter.
A further 22 people were injured, some of the “dangerously”, police said. Austrian news agency APA reports that Vienna’s hospital service said seven people were in life-threatening condition.
A minute of silence was held across the country on Tuesday afternoon to remember all the victims.
Kurz has chosen the country’s social security council to consider what should happen next and emphasised that the fact that the strikes were carried out by Islamists did not mean that Austrians “should condemn all members of a religion”.
“It is a fight among the people who gather in peace and the terrorists,” he said at a news conference.
He said it was clearly an “Islamist” attack and said that the attackers were motivated by hatred of Austrian democracy and its way of life.