Austria To Launch Domestic Security Agency On Wednesday

VIENNA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 30th November, 2021) Austria's new domestic security and intelligence agency DSN will get down to work on Wednesday, in what Interior Minister Karl Nehammer described as a "historic day" for national security.

"It is huge. It is not every day that you see something like this happen in Europe. Any country that has done it will tell you that building a security agency from scratch is an intensive and painstaking process," he told a news conference.

Nehammer said DSN would have an entirely new structure, admission and training requirements, and an experienced command led by Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, the former head of state criminal police in Lower Austria.

The agency will get a new home in historical military barracks in the coming years. The $6.8 million complex will also house Federal criminal police and a cybersecurity unit.

DSN will be tasked with counter-terrorism policing as part of a national security overhaul. It was launched after a known jihadist shot four people dead and wounded 22 others in Vienna in November 2020.