Austria arrests two suspects with links to Paris attacks

Vienna, Dec 17: The police in Austria have arrested two suspects with potential links to the Paris terror attacks at a refugee shelter in Salzburg, the prosecutor's office there revealed on Wednesday.

While Robert Holzleitner from the prosecutor's office declined to name the nationalities of the two suspects, noting only that they had arrived from the Middle East, the Kronen Zeitung newspaper reported them as being French nationals with Algerian and Pakistani backgrounds, according to Xinhua.

They had allegedly been posing as asylum seekers, and had reportedly entered Europe via the Greek island of Leros in October on fake Syrian passports, in the same group as Islamic State members who went on to carry out the Paris attacks which killed 130 people in November.

The arrest took place with the help of French intelligence services. Holzleitner said their links to the Paris attacks were now being investigated by both Austrian and French authorities, including suspicions they were planning to carry out further attacks.

IANS