Attacks on Taylor Swift’s Vienna Concerts

Authorities say two teenagers planned attacks on Taylor Swift’s Vienna concerts.

A suspect confessed to plotting to kill as many participants as possible using explosives and other weapons, security officials said. The singer’s three-concert Vienna run was cancelled.

Visitors talk to security staff outside Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadium on Thursday after all three Taylor Swift concerts scheduled there were canceled by the event’s promoters.

Less than 24 hours after the arrest of two teenagers who planned to attack a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna, security officials have outlined a picture of a terrorist attack that is more likely than not, Austrian authorities say. was designed to kill more people.

Barracuda Music, the promoter of the singer’s three-concert Vienna run, canceled the gigs on Wednesday night. The events, which were scheduled to begin on Thursday, were expected to attract more than 200,000 fans from around the world.

Franz Ruf, head of public safety in Austria, told a news conference Thursday that the main suspect is a 19-year-old man who radicalized online and pledged allegiance to Islamic State. Mr Roof said the suspect confessed to his plans shortly after his arrest, giving police detailed insight into his intended actions, including using explosives to kill as many concertgoers as possible. And the use of weapons was involved.

After searching the man’s home, where he lived with his parents, police found explosives, timers, knives and knives, Mr Roof said.

A 17-year-old suspected of being an accomplice was known to police and had recently started a job for an event service provider working at the Ernst Happel Stadium, where Ms Swift was scheduled to play. Mr Roof said he was arrested at the stadium on Wednesday.

A 15-year-old boy who was also brought in for questioning corroborated many details of the main suspect’s confession, Mr Roof said, adding that police believed the boy was not an active participant in the plot, but that he He was familiar with the details.

With the suspects in custody, Mr Roof said there was no immediate threat.

Omar Hijawi-Prichner, director of Austria’s domestic intelligence agency, distanced himself from the promoter’s decision to cancel the concerts, saying that although his agency understood the decision, it never pushed for the cancellation.

“The situation is serious,” Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Körner said, noting that Austria has been on a terror response level since the October 7 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel. He said that the threat of Islamist extremism in Europe has significantly increased after the terrible terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel.

Concerts have been the target of attacks elsewhere in Europe in recent years. In 2015, three gunmen attacked a concert venue in Paris, killing more than 90 people and injuring hundreds. In 2017, a suicide bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England killed 22 people. And in March, four people attacked a concert venue in Moscow, killing more than 100 people. All three attacks were carried out by individuals who were inspired by or linked to the Islamic State.

Fans of Ms Swift were also targeted in an attack in England last week, when three children were stabbed to death during a dance class themed around the singer. A teenage boy was arrested in connection with the attack.

Next week, the singer’s world tour is set to kick off five sold-out shows at the 90,000-capacity Wembley Stadium in London.

Neither Wembley Stadium nor A.E.G. Gift, the promoter of the tour’s British dates, immediately responded to emails about how events in Austria would affect those shows. But a spokesman for London’s Metropolitan Police said in a statement: “There is nothing to indicate that the matters being investigated by the Austrian authorities will have any bearing on events in London”