VIENNA (AP) \u2014 Austria\u2019s domestic intelligence service has uncovered a weapons cache in Vienna that is believed to be linked to the Palestinian militant group Hamas for use in \u201cpossible terrorist attacks in Europe,\u201d the government said Thursday.<\/p>\n
A 39-year-old unidentified British citizen allegedly \u201chaving close ties to the weapons cache\u201d was arrested in London on Monday, the interior ministry statement said. <\/p>\n
\u201cAccording to the current state of the investigation, Israeli or Jewish institutions in Europe were likely to be the targets of these attacks,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n
The weapons cache and the suspect were part of an internationally coordinated investigation by the country\u2019s Directorate for State Security and Intelligence service, or DSN, \u201cinto a global terrorist organization with ties to Hamas.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the course of the investigations, the ministry said its intelligence service found \u201csuspicion that a group has brought weapons into Austria to use in possible terrorist attacks in Europe.\u201d <\/p>\n
Germany\u2019s federal prosecutor\u2019s office later on Thursday identified the suspect as Mohammed A. in line with German privacy lines. It said in a statement that he met up twice with Abdel Al G. who was arrested in Germany last month<\/a> on suspicion of plotting attacks on Israeli or Jewish institutions in Germany<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cOn these occasions, Mohammed A. took over five handguns and ammunition from Abed Al G. He then transported the weapons to Austria and stored them in Vienna,\u201d the prosecutor\u2019s statement said. \u201cThese actions served to prepare terrorist attacks on Israeli or Jewish facilities in Germany.\u201d<\/p>\n The statement said that \u201cafter his extradition from Great Britain,\u201d the suspect will be brought before an investigating judge at the Federal Court of Justice in Germany. <\/p>\n In a statement at the time, Hamas denied having any connection to the suspects arrested in Germany last month, describing the allegations of a link to the group as baseless. The group has carried out hundreds of attacks against Israeli civilians over the years but has rarely operated outside Israel and the Palestinian territories.<\/p>\n The weapons cache, which is thought belongs to unspecified foreign operations linked to Hamas, was discovered in a suitcase in a rented storage room in Vienna and contained five handguns and 10 accompanying magazines. <\/p>\n \u201cThe current case shows once again that the Directorate for State Security and Intelligence has an excellent international network and takes consistent action against all forms of extremism,\u201d Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said. \u201cThe mission is clear: zero tolerance for terrorists.\u201d<\/p>\n Britain\u2019s National Crime Agency confirmed on Thursday that the 39-year-old was arrested in central London on Monday by specialist officers from the NCA\u2019s National Extradition Unit. He is being held in custody until his next appearance at Westminster Magistrates\u2019 Court on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VIENNA (AP) \u2014 Austria\u2019s domestic intelligence service has uncovered a weapons cache in Vienna that is believed to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":360302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[110,97114,356,440,57,175161,117,4527,3462,2936,175160,50,5343,115793,103,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-360301","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-austria","9":"tag-austria-government","10":"tag-courts","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-general-news","13":"tag-gerhard-karner","14":"tag-germany","15":"tag-hamas","16":"tag-israel-government","17":"tag-law-enforcement","18":"tag-mohammed-a","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-terrorism","21":"tag-vienna","22":"tag-world","23":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115504047143573348","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}