Two teenagers have been nabbed in Austria for plotting to attack Taylor Swift concert in Vienna with the aim to kill numerous people, the intelligence agency reported on Thursday.
One of the suspects, a 19-year-old said to be IS sympathizer was detained for planning a suicide attack where he planned to kill many people alongside himself.
Austrian authorities said the two suspects were detained on Wednesday for allegedly planning to attack this week’s Vienna concerts by the U.S. star, which organisers canceled at the last minute.
The unnamed 19-year-old prime suspect had confessed, saying he “intended to carry out an attack using explosives and knives,” domestic intelligence agency (DSN) head Omar Haijawi-Pirchner told a news conference.
“His aim was to kill himself and a large number of people during the concert… either today or tomorrow,” he added. The concerts were to run from Thursday to Saturday.
The second suspect, a 17-year-old Austrian, was employed at a facility management company that would have “provided services” at the Ernst Happel Stadium where Swift was to perform, said Haijawi-Pirchner.
He added that the younger suspect, who has so far refused to talk to authorities, was “in the area” of the stadium where he was detained.
According to Interior Minister Gerhard Karner, a “tragedy was averted”. “The situation was very serious”, he added, particularly given a recent attack at a Taylor Swift-themed event in Britain, where three girls were killed in Great Britain.
Explosives and detonators were found in a search of the main suspect’s apartment, authorities said.
Austria’s top security chief, Franz Ruf told reporters that the two suspects had recently made changes in their private lives.
The main suspect, an Austrian with Northern Macedonian roots, had changed “his appearance and adapted it to Islamic State propaganda”, while the second, an Austrian of Turkish or Croatian origin, had broken up with his girlfriend, he said.
Ruf earlier confirmed that authorities had received information “from foreign partners” which led to the arrests, but he declined to specify.
Police had promised to ramp up security for the concerts while having minimised any concrete danger, but organisers still canceled Swift’s shows. About 65,000 people were expected at each show.
Taylor Swift did not immediately comment on the decision to cancel the Vienna shows but after the British attack said she was “completely in shock”. Three girls were killed and five people seriously wounded in the mass stabbing at a dance class in Southport inspired by the American singer.
According to Ruf, police “did everything humanly possible to ensure” that the Vienna concerts “could go ahead”, but the cancellation decision was taken by the organisers.
The 34-year-old star was to bring her record-breaking “Eras” Tour, which began its European leg in Paris in May, to Vienna on Thursday.
Following France, the tour stopped in Sweden, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, Germany and Poland.
In Austria, more than 170,000 spectators were expected to attend the shows, bringing in some 100 million euros, according to estimates by the news agency APA.
By the end of the year, “Eras” had already become the first tour to sell more than $1 billion in tickets and it is on track to more than double that by the time it concludes in Vancouver in December.
Austria’s first deadly jihadist attack occurred in November 2020, when a convicted IS sympathiser launched a shooting spree in Vienna, killing four people and injuring 23 before being shot dead by police.
