Terrorist attack in Austria. Syrian migrant stops his countryman from further bloodshed
Villach is a city of 65,000 in southeastern Austria. On Sunday, February 16, a tragic event occurred there. A Syrian attacker armed with a knife launched a stabbing spree on the street, targeting passersby. Another Syrian migrant stepped in, intervening just in time to prevent further bloodshed. His bravery has now earned him the title of a hero.
The victim of Sunday's attack was a 14-year-old boy, and five other people were injured. There could have been many more if not for the heroism of Alaaeddin al-Halabi, a Syrian migrant who helped stop the perpetrator, also from Syria.
Alaaeddin al-Halabi has lived in Austria since 2015 and legally works as a food deliveryman. At the time of the attack, he was driving past the scene, and when he saw the wounded, he decided to react and hit the attacker with his car, who was stopped by the police a moment later.
"I immediately understood what was happening – there were people on the ground bleeding, and this person was waving the knife in a threatening manner. [...] Immediately drove toward him and hit him with my car. The good thing is that the impact wasn’t too strong, thank God. I mean, the goal of hitting him with the car was just to neutralise him or stop what he was doing. The goal wasn’t to harm anyone," said al-Halabi in an interview with Reuters.
Thanks to him, there were no more casualties, for which the city authorities are now grateful to him. "We are very grateful to the man who intervened selflessly, courageously and decisively and thus prevented something even worse from happening, as well as to the rapid deployment of the police," said the mayor of Villach, Günther Albel.
Words of appreciation for the heroic act of the Syrian were also expressed by the Austrian police and state governor, Peter Kaiser, who said that al-Halabi's reaction "shows how closely terrorist evil but also human good can be united in one and the same nationality," emphasizing that the nationality of the attacker is not everything and to refrain from categorizing, xenophobic behavior only on this basis.
Although everyone hails him as a hero, al-Halabi himself remains humble and appeals for behavior like his to be the norm, and for people not to be afraid to react in situations of danger. People look at me as a hero, but I don’t see it that way. I say to people: ‘Please, if something like this happens again, you have to do something. You can’t just stand there, take photos and film videos.'"
As revealed by Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner, the attacker was a 23-year-old Syrian legally residing in Austria, who was radicalized "in a short time" by Islamic State materials via the internet.
Sources: Reuters, The Guardian
