VIENNA: Authorities suspect around 130 people resident in Austria — most of them foreign nationals — have allied themselves with Islamist militants fighting abroad, officials in Vienna said yesterday, raising their estimate by nearly a third.
Public Safety Director Konrad Kogler told a news conference the 130 figure included “people actively participating in combat as well as ones who have returned to Austria, because both groups of people are relevant for us”.
He thought around two-thirds of them had come back to Austria and one-third were in battle or on the way there.
Officials were tracking the target group’s foreign travel and monitoring their activities when they return given the security risk they might pose, he said.
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