Recruitment of operatives in Austria

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Written by The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center

An Islamic preacher was recently detained on charges of recruiting operatives in Austria to join ISIS, including young girls. The detainee is Ebu Tejma, who lives in Vienna. According to the Austrian security services, Ebu Tejma’s real name is Mirsad Omerovic. He recruited the young people, was also involved in sending them to fight in Syria and provided them with financing. According to the security services, he is one of the jihadi leaders of the so-called “Bosnian cell,” based in Vienna.

According to a newspaper in Bosnia Herzegovina, the cell is one of the main logistical and financial support centers for jihadi activity in Europe.

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On October 30, 2014, a 14-year-old boy was detained on suspicion of planning to plant IEDs in crowded places in Vienna. It was reported that ISIS offered the boy the sum of USD 25,000 to carry out the attacks. According to the Austrian media, the boy is Mertkan G., the son of a Turkish immigrant who has been living in Austria for the past eight years. According to Austrian media reports, he was recruited for his mission via the Internet. Other youngsters were also recruited, and were supposed to carry out similar attacks (according to another version, the boy was a “lone wolf”, acting on his own) (Telegraph, October 30, 2014). One of the sites in Vienna where the IEDs were supposed to be planted was one of the busiest train stations in Austria (Vienna’s Westbanhof Station, which is frequented by 40,000 people every day).