Vienna police stepped up armed patrols at sensitive sites in the Austrian capital including churches on Wednesday after the country’s domestic intelligence agency received information suggesting an Islamist attack was being planned.

The city’s police took the rare step of warning the public on social media that there would be a heightened presence of armed police, including special forces, in the city.

“Our intelligence services have reason to believe that an assault with an Islamist motive is planned to be carried out in Vienna,” Vienna police stated on Twitter.

“As a precautionary measure… points of interest have been put under increased guard by regular & special operation police forces,” the police added.

Unfortunately, Viena services were unable to say how long the special measures would last.

At this moment, we can not forsee the duration of those measures. If
immanent danger develops at a certain location, we’ll issue a warning immediately. 2/2

— POLIZEI WIEN (@LPDWien) March 15, 2023

Vienna is regarded as one of the safest capitals in the world, however, some militant attacks did occur in the city’s past. The first deadly attack in a generation took place in 2020 when a jihadist gunman killed four people in a shooting rampage before being shot dead by police.