Terror Suspect Arrested in Austria for Trying to Sabotage High-Speed German Train

By Clyde Hughes

An unnamed Iraqi male was arrested by Austrian authorities in connection with failed terror attacks on railways

in Germany late last year. Photo by Andrew Bone/Wikimedia Commons

UPI -- Austrian authorities arrested a 42-year-old Iraqi man in Vienna in connection with failed terror attacks on railways in Germany late last year.

Prosecutors accused the unnamed man, arrested Monday, of being an Islamic State sympathizer and attempting to sabotage high-speed trains.

In October, a high-speed train hit a steel cable stretched across the tracks between electrification masts on the Nuremberg-Munich line in Germany, Bavarian State Criminal Police Office said Wednesday.

The driver's cab of the train was damaged but police found no other injuries.

Investigators found what was described as a threatening note written in Arabic nearby. Police discovered damaged overhead wires in Berlin as well as a note in Arabic and a flag of the Islamic State militant group in December.

Vienna prosecutors said that the suspect was a father of five and a migrant who was granted refugee status 20 years ago. Authorities said the suspect praised several Islamist terror attacks on social media, including the 2016 truck attack in Nice, France, that killed 86 people.

A local media report said he called for revenge in the March 15 New Zealand attack in which a right-wing suspect is alleged to have killed 50 worshipers at two Christchurch mosques.

The Austrian arrest follows raids Saturday in Germany where authorities arrested 10 people on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack using a car and guns. The suspects in that case ranged in age from 20 to 42 and included some German citizens.

"They are believed to have agreed to carry out an Islamist, terrorist attack using a vehicle and guns that would kill as many 'non-believers' as possible," Frankfurt prosecutors said in a statement at the time.