(Middle East Eye) An Austrian-Jordanian has been appointed … head of the country’s new security agency, following harsh criticism of the previous institution’s failure to prevent an attack by an alleged Islamic State (IS) sympathiser.
The appointment of Omar Haijawi-Pirchner as head of the Directorate of State Security and Intelligence (DSN) follows a pledge by Austria’s minister of interior, Karl Nehammer, to replace the former counterterrorism agency, the BVT, with a “genuinely new” security organisation.
The BVT was harshly criticised after it failed to thwart a deadly attack in Vienna in November last year by a 20-year-old man from North Macedonia who had sympathies with IS.
Four people were killed during the violent attack and 23 were injured.
