Austrian Police Arrest 8 Over Alleged Islamic State Links

Austrian police arrested eight suspected terrorists 
Thursday in a series of early-morning raids in the 
country's two largest cities that mobilized heavily 
armed SWAT teams and hundreds of officers 
supporting them.

A statement from the public prosecutor's office in Graz, 
one of the cities involved, said those detained were
 suspected of involvement with the Islamic State 
extremist group.

Police also struck simultaneously in Vienna, in twin 
operations that the statement said utilized 800 police.

The raids come less than a week after police in Vienna detained a 17-year-old they describe as belonging to
 "radical Salafist" circles who they said has confessed
 to experimenting with building a bomb.

But the statement said Thursday's sweeps had been 
planned for "a longer time," suggesting no immediate
 link. Instead, they appeared connected to investigations 
of followers of a Serbian- born Islamic cleric sentenced
 last year in Graz to 20 years in prison for recruiting 
dozens of young men to fight for the Islamic State group.

The 35-year old preacher has been identified only as 
Mirsad O., who also goes by the alias of Abu Tejma,
 in accordance with Austrian privacy laws. The cleric,
 who also was found guilty of inciting others to murder 
and of coercion, has denied all charges.

Interior Ministry figures show that approximately 300
 people have left or tried to leave Austria to fight for
 radical groups in the Middle East since 2012. Of these, 
90 have returned while 50 are listed as having been
 killed in fighting.