Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/1333129
It sometimes happened that signals like that were disrupted by the noise and the sheer amount of data pro- cessed, concerning terrorist activi- ties. Sometimes it was turning out that the uniformed services were using most of their resources to monitor persons considered to pose a greater threat. All of the above is layered under the competency-re- lated conflicts and internal issues that the services encounter. The latter issue has been especially pro- nounced in Austria. The uniformed services there were far from being in a perfect shape, being an object of political games. In 2018 the Po- lice conducted a search at a base of special services, and at apartments of highly-ranked officers. It is highly probable then that all of those fac- tors, the political turbulence, in par- ticular, surrounding the intelligence services, as well as the intelligence analysis and processing problems, with those processes leading to the identification of threats, altogether made it impossible to prevent the attack at the preparatory stage. The terrorist was not really inno- vative when selecting the meth- odology. The Vienna attack can be classified as the so-called MTFA (Marauding Terrorist Firearms At- tack). The perpetrator(s), when on the move, attack persons and facil- ities with the use of firearms. The modus operandi was very similar to the one that had been adopt- ed during one of the phases of the Paris attack of November 2015. It is also unclear whether the terrorist wanted to create the so-called pre- tended hostage situation. Maybe he was considering kidnapping a person to conduct decapitation afterward. This could be the case, as the perpe- trator was carrying a machete. Luckily, the Police's reaction was rapid. As the available information suggests, the ordinary policemen were the first to arrive at the scene. Then, the WEGA unit provid- ed relevant support. The element in question is tasked with high-risk operations and arrests primarily. It also deploys two-men interven- tion groups that were assigned to tackle the threat in the discussed circumstances. EKO Cobra unit was also involved in the operation at the further stages. The Jagdkommando military special operations element was also rumored to be deployed to Vienna. Analyzing the Police's moves, sev- eral factors shall be taken into con- sideration. Similarly, as in the case of numerous other events, the ini- tial suspicion was that more than one terrorist was involved in the act. This is not really a surprise, as stress, panic and chaos make the reality distorted for the eyewitness- ANALIZA