Workers remove barriers on August 8, 2024 in front of the Ernst Happel Stadium in Vienna, Austria, after the three scheduled concerts of US mega-star Taylor Swift were cancelled following the arrest of an Islamic State sympathiser in connection with an attack plot. | AFP
VIENNA — Austrian security officials said Thursday that the main suspect of the two arrested in a foiled plot to attack now-canceled Taylor Swift shows in Vienna fully confessed to his plans to “kill as many people as possible outside the concert venue.”
Officials told reporters at a press conference in the Austrian capital that they found ties to the Islamic State group, and when the 19-year-old began working on his attack plans in July, he quit his regular job and “conspicuously changed his appearance and adapted to IS propaganda.”
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The head of the Directorate of State Security and Intelligence, Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, said the 19-year-old wanted to use knives or self-made explosives outside the Ernst Happel Stadium to kill as many people as possible.
He was “clearly radicalized in the direction of the Islamic State and thinks it is right to kill infidels,” Haijawi-Pirchner said.
Just a few weeks ago, the 19-year-old had also uploaded an oath of allegiance to the current leader of the Islamic State group militia to an internet account. During a raid of his home in Ternitz, south of Vienna, investigators found chemical substances and technical devices that indicated “concrete preparatory acts,” said Franz Ruf, Director General for Public Security at the Ministry of the Interior.
Authorities also found Islamic State group and al-Qaida material at the home of the second suspect, a 17-year-old Austrian. He was employed a few days ago by a company providing services at the venue for the concerts, and was arrested by special police forces near the stadium.
The suspects’ names were not released in line with Austrian privacy rules.
No other suspects are being sought, Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said. However, a 15-year-old, who had been in contact with both suspects, was also interrogated by police.
“The situation was serious, the situation is serious. But we can also say: A tragedy was prevented,” he said.
READ MORE: Taylor Swift’s Vienna shows cancelled after IS sympathizer arrest
The cancellations of three sold-out concerts this week devastated Swifties across the globe, many of whom had dropped thousands of euros (dollars) on travel and lodging in Austria’s expensive capital city for the sold-out Eras Tour shows on Thursday, Friday and Saturday at the Ernst Happel Stadium, which sat empty Thursday morning aside from media filming outside.
Security officials and the organizers of the concerts, Barracuda Music, were in close contact about whether to cancel the three concerts, but in the end it was the organizer who made the call.
Barracuda Music said in an Instagram post late Wednesday that “we have no choice but to cancel the three scheduled shows for everyone’s safety.” It cited government officials’ confirmation of a planned attack at the stadium.
Europe is enamored by the American superstar, with the German town of Gelsenkirchen renaming itself “Swiftkirchen” before its mid-July concerts.
Austria’s Vice-Chancellor Werner Kogler wrote on social platform X: “For many, a dream has been shattered today. On three evenings in Vienna, tens of thousands of #Swifties should have celebrated life together.”
“I am very sorry that you were denied this. Swifties stick together, hate and terror can’t destroy that,” Kogler added.
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer posted on X that “the cancellation of the Taylor Swift concerts by the organizers is a bitter disappointment for all fans in Austria.”
“The situation surrounding the apparently planned terror attack in Vienna was very serious,” he wrote. But he added that, thanks to intensive cooperation between police and Austrian and foreign intelligence, “the threat could be recognized early on, tackled and a tragedy prevented.”
Barracuda Music said that “all tickets will be automatically refunded within the next 10 business days.” The same wording was posted under the Vienna dates on Swift’s official website.
The Vienna stadium had been sold out for the planned concerts, APA reported, with an estimated 170,000 fans expected for the concerts in Austria. Some who posted on X lamented months of now-wasted efforts to make friendship bracelets and pick out fashionable outfits for the performance.
Swift is expected to perform at London’s Wembley stadium in five concerts between Aug. 15 and 20 to close the European leg of her record-setting Eras Tour.
In 2017, an attack at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, killed 22 people. Suicide bomber Salman Abedi set up a knapsack bomb in Manchester Arena at the end of Grande’s concert as thousands of young fans were leaving. More than 100 people were injured. Abedi died in the explosion.
An official inquiry reported in 2023 that Britain’s domestic intelligence agency, MI5, didn’t act swiftly enough on key information and missed a significant opportunity to prevent the bombing, the deadliest extremist attack in the United Kingdom in recent years.
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