An eleven-year-old boy in Austria wearing no shoes lost a toe when the cow he was trying to stroke stepped on his foot, police said Thursday.

The German boy, on holiday in Tyrol in western Austria, was playing with other children in an Alpine meadow on Wednesday evening when the animal approached them.

Austria's Catholic Church is trying a new strategy to attract the faithful: advertising its churches as places to cool off in a record heatwave.

As Austrians sweltered in temperatures close to 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), Catholic news agency Kathpress surveyed the country's houses of worship Tuesday to find the coolest one.

An Austrian man was sentenced on Thursday to two years in prison over the death of a woman in his car who mistook the drug "liquid ecstasy" for water.

The 27-year-old Natalie D. and a girlfriend were given a lift from a nightclub in Vienna by the 36-year-old defendant and another man in the early hours of April 1.

Austria has summoned the U.S. ambassador to explain reports that Washington had bugged European offices and embassies amid a growing diplomatic row, a spokesman for Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger said Monday.

The ambassador, William Eacho, will be called in on Tuesday to outline the U.S. position in the spiraling espionage scandal that has threatened to damage transatlantic ties.

Austrian troops in the U.N. monitoring force on the Golan Heights began withdrawing on Wednesday, days after Vienna decided to quit the mission over security concerns, an Agence France Presse photographer said.

A group of 20 soldiers entered the Israeli side of the strategic plateau through the Quneitra Crossing, the only direct passage between Israel and Syria, the photographer said.

Austrian troops in the U.N. monitoring force on the Golan Heights will begin pulling out on Wednesday, the defense ministry said, just days after Vienna's controversial decision to quit the mission.

"Between 60 and 80 troops will return to Austria tomorrow afternoon," defense ministry spokesman Andreas Strobl told Agence France Presse Tuesday.

The U.N. force in the Golan Heights was thrown into disarray Thursday after Austria withdrew its troops and two peacekeepers were injured as Syrian government and rebel fighters battled for a border crossing.

Peacekeepers from the Philippines and India were wounded by mortar shrapnel as the Syrians fought for the strategic crossing, according to diplomats.

Austria will withdraw its troops from the U.N. peacekeeping mission in the Golan Heights, the government said Thursday, after Syrian rebels briefly seized a crossing on the Israel-Syria ceasefire line.

"In light of this, the defense minister said that... the Austrian army's participation in the UNDOF mission can no longer be maintained for military reasons," Chancellor Werner Faymann and Vice-Chancellor Michael Spindelegger said in a statement.

The Czech capital Prague was on high flood alert Monday with businesses shut and transport coming to a halt after torrential rains left at least six people dead and forced thousands from their homes across central Europe.

Czech rescue crews were searching for four others believed to have died in the flooding which cut power to tens of thousands of households across the Czech Republic, Austria and Germany.

The elder of the two brothers allegedly behind the Boston marathon bombings twice attended boxing training events in Austria, the interior ministry said Tuesday.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, shot dead on Friday by U.S. police, spent a week in Salzburg in 2007 and a week in Innsbruck in 2009, the ministry said, confirming a media report.