Apparent bomb attempt at U.S. mission

A Bosnian who tried to enter the U.S. Embassy in Vienna with a backpack filled with explosives, nails and Islamic literature was arrested Monday after the bag set off a metal detector and the man ran away, authorities said.

Police sealed off the neighborhood as a precaution and shut down or rerouted nearby bus and tram lines. Officers patrolled the area with bomb-sniffing dogs.

The suspect was described only as a 42-year-old native of Bosnia-Herzegovina who now lives in the province of Lower Austria, which encircles most of the capital. Police said they made the arrest a short distance from the embassy in a neighborhood where security is tight.

The motive for the attack was not immediately clear. Doris Edelbacher of Austria’s federal counter-terrorism office said the backpack held a book that appeared to contain references to Islam. But she said the content was still being analyzed and it was too early to suggest that the suspect may have been motivated by radical Islamic ideology.

Guenther Ahmed Rusznak, a spokesman for Vienna’s Islamic community, issued a statement late Monday condemning the attempted bombing and rejecting radical Islam.

Vienna police spokeswoman Michaela Raz said explosives experts were examining the contents of the backpack.

Rather than blow up the backpack in a controlled explosion, a police bomb squad used a water cannon to partially tear it open so the contents could be preserved and examined, officials said.

“There were a lot of nails in that bag. Had it exploded, it would have had an enormous shrapnel effect,” Edelbacher said. She said the bag also held at least two hand grenades.