© sro/Eibner-Pressefoto / Global Look PressFILE PHOTO: Police officers block a street in the Austrian capital of Vienna.
The first incident took place near the Austrian capital's famous Prater Park around 19:45 local time (18:45 GMT) when a man suddenly attacked a family of three with a folding knife in front of a Japanese restaurant on Praterstrasse. The three victims were a couple and their teenage daughter.
"A man attacked a family - a father, a mother and their 17-year-old daughter - with a knife. The three people were seriously injured and their lives are in danger," a police spokesman told Reuters.
The assailant was shouting at his victims before stabbing them, witnesses to the attack recalled. "He seemed uninhibited and psychotic," Silvia Franke told Austria's Kurier newspaper.
After stabbing the Austrian family, the perpetrator immediately fled the scene of the crime, shouting at and threatening people along his way.
Authorities deployed a number of ambulances and a Special Forces unit to track the suspect. Amid the ongoing operation and an active manhunt, another stabbing was reported nearby.
"Half an hour later there was another attack .... at Praterstern," the police spokesman said. "Here a person was also seriously injured and their life is in danger."
While police continue to look into a possible connection between the two incidents, local media reports indicate that the second incident was caused by a dispute between two young Afghanis in front of a food stall, with no apparent link to the earlier attack in front of the Japanese restaurant. Police on Twitter confirmed the "arrest" of the second attacker, stating that a possible connection to an earlier attack is a "subject of the investigation."
"We do not know to what extent there is a connection here and any motive remains unclear," the city's police spokesman noted.
The search for the culprit of the first attack is in full swing. The manhunt, however, is complicated by the fact that police know "absolutely nothing" about the attacker. "We know we are looking for a man," police said. The motive for the attack is currently unknown.
The 23-year-old Afghan asylum seeker who was arrested in connection with the stabbings of four people Wednesday night in Vienna has confessed to the attacks, saying he stabbed them because he was “in a bad mood”.
The man was arrested Wednesday night after two separate stabbing attacks in Leopoldstadt, the second district of Vienna.
During his police interrogation, he said that the first attack was motivated by his “bad mood” over his life situation. The second attack was related to the Vienna drug scene and the Afghan blamed the fourth victim for his drug addiction.
The first attack, which occurred at 7:45 pm, saw a 67-year-old Viennese dentist, his 56-year-old wife, and 17-year-old daughter stabbed outside a Japanese restaurant near the Nestroyplatz metro station. While the mother and daughter are said to be in stable condition, the dentist is still fighting for his life, Kronen Zeitung reports.
A second attack occurred near the Praterstern train station, which is also in the second district and well-known for migrant criminality. The Afghan attacked a 20-year-old Chechen migrant in front of a snack bar, stabbing him. The Chechen was also in critical condition but is stable after being treated at a local hospital.
Shortly after the second attack, police were able to locate the Afghan migrant and place him under arrest. They found two knives in his possession.
Sources who spoke to Kronen Zeitung claimed that the Afghan may have been living in Vienna illegally as a “submerged” migrant.
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