A CIA official has revealed that the service helped thwart an ISIS terrorist attack that aimed to kill “tens of thousands” of fans at Taylor Swift’s concert in Vienna.
Speaking at a National Security and Intelligence Summit in Maryland on Wednesday, CIA Deputy Director David Cohen said the agency provided Austrian authorities with critical information about four individuals who were linked to the Islamic State and planning to attack the concert.
“They were plotting to kill a large number, tens of thousands of people at this concert, I’m sure many Americans,” Cohen was quoted as saying by the paper. The New York Times.
The official added that some of the people arrested were found to be carrying bomb-making materials and had direct access to the venue where three Eras Tour shows were to be held.
The shows, which were due to draw 200,000 spectators from 8 to 10 August at Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadium, were quickly cancelled following the arrests.
A CIA official has revealed that the service helped thwart an ISIS terrorist attack that aimed to kill “tens of thousands” at Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour show in Vienna.
One of the arrested suspects was a 19-year-old ISIS fanatic who was identified as Beran A. (pictured), who lived in Ternitz, south of Vienna.
Beran A. is said to have been building a bomb in his parents’ back garden.
On August 7, Austrian authorities arrested two people accused of planning a terrorist attack, and others were arrested in the following days.
Cohen did not clarify how the CIA had learned of the planned attack, but said, “I can tell you that within my agency and others, there were people who thought it was a very good day for Langley,” referring to CIA headquarters, “and not just for the Swifties in the workforce.”
Three people have been arrested in connection with the terror plot, including Beran A, a 19-year-old Austrian ISIS fanatic who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and was targeting Swift’s tour.
He is currently considered the prime suspect.
The other suspects arrested are a 17-year-old Austrian and an 18-year-old Iraqi, but their names have not yet been released.
Beran A. was revealed to have been building a bomb in his parents’ back garden and earlier this month it was reported that the teenager was radicalised by notorious hate preacher Abul Baraa in Berlin, according to German intelligence sources.
German magazine Profil said Beran A. attended a business school in Neunkirchen, where he had to repeat a year and was repeatedly violent towards girls, according to former classmates.
He is said to have grabbed a girl his age by the neck and pushed her against a wall during an argument.
The main suspect, Beran A, was arrested one day before the first concert in Vienna on August 7 in his hometown of Ternitz, while another suspect was arrested at the concert venue.
The shows, which were due to draw 200,000 spectators from 8 to 10 August at Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadium, were quickly cancelled following the arrests.
Taylor Swift said on Instagram: ‘The reason for the cancellations filled me with a new sense of fear and a tremendous amount of guilt’
Just a year later, a former classmate said he had harassed and groped other girls before “changing his appearance a lot and isolating himself.”
It was learned that Beran A. and his accomplice had planned to attack Swift’s concert venue by driving into the crowd outside and attacking them with knives and machetes before detonating a suicide bomb to kill as many fans as possible.
Beran A. had previously worked at the same stainless steel plant in Ternitz as his father.
I was doing an apprenticeship as a retail salesman at the factory, where I had access to the plant’s laboratory, including various chemicals.
During a raid on the family home in Ternitz earlier this month, bomb disposal experts obtained the chemicals needed to produce the explosive triacetone triperoxide (TATP), which Beran A. is said to have previously experimented with.
ISIS typically uses TATP in terror attacks and requires acetone and hydrogen peroxide, which authorities confirmed were found in the home.
Taylor Swift fans sing together at Stephansplatz on August 8, 2024 in Vienna, Austria
Following the ordeal, Taylor Swift took to Instagram to share why she initially decided to remain silent in the days following the show’s cancellation.
“The cancellation of our concerts in Vienna was devastating. The reason for the cancellation filled me with a new sense of fear and enormous guilt because so many people had planned to attend those concerts,” she wrote in a post on August 21.
‘But I was also very grateful to the authorities because thanks to them, we were in mourning concerts and not live.’
The pop star and her team worked closely with British authorities to ensure her five nights at London’s Wembley Stadium went off without a hitch and safely.
“Let me be very clear: I will not speak about something publicly if I feel that doing so might provoke those who want to harm the fans who come to my shows,” she continued.
In cases like this, ‘silence’ is actually a sign of restraint and waiting to express oneself at the right moment.
“My priority was to finish our European tour safely and I can say with great relief that we achieved that.”
