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| - Austria's intelligence services was warned that the gunman who carried out the Vienna shootings had tried to procure ammunition, the interior minister said Wednesday, as the country probes security failings ahead of the attack. "In the last few hours information has come to light that some time prior to the terror attack, Slovakian intelligence informed (Austria's domestic intelligence service) the BVT about the attacker," Karl Nehammer told a press conference. "The information was that he wanted to get ammunition," he said. "In the next steps there was clearly a failure of communication." Four people were killed when the gunman, named as convicted Islamic State supporter Kujtim Fejzulai, 20, went on the rampage in Vienna on Monday evening. He was later shot dead by police. Fejzulai had been convicted and sentenced to 22 months in prison in April last year for trying to travel to Syria and join the IS group. But he was released on probation in December, and had been referred to organisations specialising in de-radicalisation. Nehammer accused his far-right predecessor of being responsible for failings in the way the BVT operates, saying the agency "suffered lasting damage, if not to say was destroyed" under Herbert Kickl. He said the agency had "been shaken to its foundations" during Kickl's time in office under a coalition government between the centre-right and far-right which took office in December 2017 and collapsed in May 2019. Nehammer said he wanted a commission to be set up to look into flaws in the functioning of the intelligence services. Kickl came under fire in 2018 when under his watch police raided the offices and homes of senior BVT officials. Kickl insisted that the raids were above board but some of them were declared illega by a Vienna court. jsk/txw
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