Foiled Taylor Swift concert attack aimed to kill 'tens of thousands' of fans

Photo: Heinz-Peter Bader Associated Press The concert promoter, Barracuda Music, said it canceled the three-night Vienna tour that was scheduled to begin Aug. 8 because the conspiracy-related arrests were too close to showtime.

Stefanie Dazio – The Associated Press in Berlin

Published at 12:30

• Europe

Suspects in the foiled plot to attack Taylor Swift’s Vienna concerts in early August sought to kill “tens of thousands” of her fans before the CIA uncovered intelligence that disrupted the planning and led to arrests, the agency’s deputy director said.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) informed Austrian authorities of the plan, which allegedly included links to the Islamic State (IS) armed group. The intelligence and subsequent arrests ultimately led to the cancellation of three sold-out concerts on the Eras tour, devastating fans who had traveled around the world to see the singer in concert.

CIA Deputy Director David Cohen addressed the foiled plot at the annual Intelligence and National Security Summit in Maryland this week.

“They were plotting to kill a significant number of people — tens of thousands of people at this concert, many Americans, I'm sure — and were quite advanced in that regard,” Cohen said Wednesday.

“The Austrians were able to make these arrests because the agency and our partners in the intelligence community provided them with information about what this ISIS-linked group was planning to do.”

Knives and explosives planned

Austrian authorities said the main suspect, a 19-year-old Austrian, was inspired by the Islamic State group. He reportedly planned to attack outside the stadium, where more than 30,000 fans were expected, with knives or homemade explosives. An additional 65,000 spectators were likely inside the venue. Investigators discovered chemicals and technical devices during a search of the suspect’s home.

Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner had previously said that help from other intelligence agencies was needed because Austrian investigators, unlike some foreign services, cannot legally monitor text messages.

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The 19-year-old’s lawyer said the allegations were “exaggerated at best” and argued that Austrian authorities were “exaggerating this” in order to gain new surveillance powers.

Taylor Swift broke her silence on the cancellations last week after her London concerts ended.

“The cancellation of our concerts in Vienna was devastating,” she wrote in a statement posted on Instagram. “The reason for the cancellations has given me a new sense of fear and an immense sense of guilt, as so many people had planned to come to these concerts.”

She thanked the authorities – “thanks to them, we were mourning concerts and not lives,” she wrote. The singer waited until the end of the European leg of her Eras tour to speak out in order to prioritize safety, she said.

“I want to be very clear: I'm not going to talk about something in public if I think it might provoke those who would want to hurt the fans who come to my concerts,” she said.

In the United Kingdom after a knife attack

The concert promoter, Barracuda Music, said it had canceled the three-night Vienna tour, which was scheduled to begin on August 8, because the arrests related to the conspiracy were too close to the showtime.

The main suspect and a 17-year-old were taken into custody on August 6, the day before the cancellations were announced. A third suspect, aged 18, was arrested on August 8. Their names have not been released in accordance with Austrian confidentiality rules.

The London concerts, the next stop on the tour after Vienna, came just after a stabbing attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in the UK left three young girls dead. In a statement released after the Southport attack, the star said she was “completely shocked” and “didn’t know how to convey my condolences to the families.” Media outlets reported that Swift met with some of the survivors backstage in London.

The Vienna plot has also been compared to a 2017 suicide bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, that killed 22 people. The bomb exploded at the end of the concert as thousands of young concert-goers were leaving the venue, becoming the deadliest extremist attack in the UK in recent years.

Deputy Director David Cohen on Wednesday praised the CIA’s work in preventing planned violence, saying other counterterrorism “successes” in foiling plots generally go unnoticed.

“I can tell you that within my agency, and I’m sure others, there were people who thought it was a very good day for Langley,” he said, referring to the CIA headquarters. “And not just the Swifties on my team.”

Taylor Swift’s tour has broken records and is currently on hiatus until the fall.