Fans of pop superstar Taylor Swift are horrified but relieved after the singer had to cancel three concerts in Vienna, Austria, after police foiled a plot by three teen men who wanted to kill themselves and as many concert-goers as they could.
Austria’s interior minister, Gerhard Karner, said law enforcement and intelligence agencies helped the country discover the plot before it could be carried out. Apparently U.S. agencies were part of that effort and warned Vienna police.
The concerts were scheduled to happen August 8, 9, and 10.
The three people were a 19-year-old described as sympathetic to the Islamist terror group ISIS, a 15-year-old, and a 17-year old. Authorities have not yet released the names of the suspects.
After being tipped off, European investigators found a cache of chemicals, detonators, homemade bombs, and 21,000 “euros” that were actually counterfeit. These were all found in the home of the 19-year-old man, who police say was radicalized by online content.
The man was arrested on August 7 in the Austrian town of Ternitz where he lived. Investigators say this was a suicide mission, and the young man wanted to take “a large number of people” with him. That’s according to the chief of Austria’s intelligence agency, Omar Haijawi-Pirchner.
The suspect claimed he would carry out the killings “using explosives and knives,” Haijawi-Pirchner said in an August 8 press conference in the capital city.
The other suspects, 15, and 17, were also arrested. The elder worked for a vendor who was providing service to the concert venue though there is no further detail available. Haijawi-Pirchner said the 17-year-old had recently broken things off with his girlfriend and was arrested near the stadium where the concerts were to take place.
There is almost nothing publicly known about the 15-year-old suspect, and it is not clear whether he was merely a witness or a co-conspirator.
Though all three were born in Austria, they were from Turkish, Croatia, and North Macedonian families.
Taylor Swift’s “Eras” tour has become the largest, most lucrative, and long-running pop tour in history. It took off in March of 2023 in the U.S.
