By DPA
Vienna : Austrian police Monday foiled a bomb attack on the US embassy in Vienna when they arrested a man after he tried to enter the embassy with a backpack filled with explosives and nails.
The suspect, a 42-year-old man with Bosnian background living outside Vienna, attempted to gain access to the embassy in Bolzmanngasse in Vienna’s 9th district, Austrian police said.
But at the entrance metal detectors went off. The man ran away and was pursued by police officers on duty protecting the embassy.
The suspect dropped the nylon backpack filled with two hand grenades, other explosives and nails, in a nearby street in the course of the pursuit, police spokeswoman Doris Edelbacher, of the anti-terrorism unit said.
The man was arrested shortly afterwards. Police explosives experts dealt with the bag. The area around the site was sealed off for several hours.
A book with allegedly Islamic content was also found on the man, but further details were not immediately known.