A 23-year-old Syrian stabbed several people on the street in the center of the Austrian town of Villach on Saturday, killing a 14-year-old boy and injuring five other people, police said, adding that the suspected attacker had been arrested.
The suspected perpetrator had sworn allegiance to the Islamic State and had its flag in his apartment, Austrian officials said on Sunday. He was also an asylum seeker in Germany who had been radicalized online.
At a press conference in Villach, the police chief for the state of Carinthia, Michaela Kohlweiss, said she could confirm an oath of allegiance.
Kohlweiss and Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said the Islamic State (IS) flag had been found in his apartment. Police said the oath was to IS.
Further details, such as whether the attacker knew any of the victims, remained unclear, a spokesperson for the police in the southern state of Carinthia said. The injured were aged between 14 and 36, he added.
Three victims of a deadly stabbing rampage in the Austrian town of Villach were in intensive care on Sunday as the political fallout from the attack by a suspected Syrian asylum-seeker spread.
The bloodshed in Villach followed an attack on Thursday in Munich in neighboring Germany by an Afghan national who drove his car into a crowd, injuring dozens, two of whom later died.
Attacks like Saturdays are rare in Austria, and this one comes at a time of political tension since the far-Right Freedom Party (FPÖ), which came first in September's parliamentary election, said last week it was unable to form a coalition government.
Centrist parties are now discussing whether they could try to form a government while the president considers options, including moving the country towards a snap election.
Railing against illegal immigration and pledging to increase deportations to countries like Syria and Afghanistan, where it is currently illegal to deport people, are central to the FPÖ's platform and appeal, and the party quickly seized on the Villach attack.
"No migrant would be able to commit murder or any other crime in our country if they were not in Austria in the first place," Freedom Party leader Herbert Kickl said in a statement posted on his and the party's social media.