Let’s break down the foiled terrorist threat against those Taylor Swift shows in Austria (with updates)
Taylor Swift’s Eras tour was supposed to roll into Vienna’s Ernst-Happel-Stadion for three shows starting tonight (Aug 8). All of them have been canceled because three men–one 19 (identified only as “Bernan A.”), an 18-year-old, and a 17-year-old–were arrested on suspicions of planning a terrorist attack.
Two are Austrian with backgrounds from North Macedonia, Türkiye, and Croatia. North Macedonia officials are now looking into the oldest suspect, who had just quit his job, saying that he had “something big planned.” A picture has been found of him posing with an ISIS flag and a giant knife. One of the 17-year-olds had just broken up with his girlfriend. He had ISIS stickers in his wallet when he was arrested. He was also known to police as an active gang member. A third suspect is described as an Iraqi national, although he wasn’t linked directly to the attack.
The three were arrested yesterday (Aug 7) in Vienna, Barracuda Music, the promoters of the shows, say they had no choice but to cancel the concerts just in case. After all, we’re talking 65,000 people at the show and up to 15,000-30,000 people hanging around outside.
They allegedly confessed to planning to “kill as many people as possible outside the concert venue” at around 4pm Thursday (Aug 8). Homemade explosives were part of the plot, but so were knives, machetes, and a VW Beetle. The oldest suspect apparently planned to drive the car into the crowd masquerading as a policeman (he had blue cop lights to mount on top of the VW) outside the stadium to wreak havoc, detonating a suicide vest after slashing at the crowd. The two other suspects had dangerous advantages because they’d been hired as part of the stadium’s security detail.
Three more people are being sought in connection with the plot. A 15-year-old who knew the suspects was interrogated.
The plot came to light via US intelligence, although the CIA declined to comment on this. They passed the information to Europol and Australian police.
Franz Ruf is the Austrian Director of Public Safety and says that the threat had been averted. One of the men had become radicalized online and last month had upload a pledge of allegiance to ISIS-K, an offshoot of the original ISIS that carried out a mass killing at a Russian concert Hall back in March.
“The suspected perpetrator was focused on the Taylor Swift concerts. Preparatory actions were detected.”
One of the men was found to have “suspicious chemicals” (apparently stolen from a lab at the 19-year-old’s place of employment at a stainless steel plant that also included biological substances) and “technical devices” at his home when he was arrested. Police describe this as an attempt to build a “dirty bomb.” The 19-year-old was the ringleader. He was living at his parents’ house with another man.
When the house was raided, officials also found €21,000 in counterfeit money, ISIS propaganda, knives, machetes, and, oddly, anabolic steroids. Another odd note: The two younger suspects inhaled some nitrous oxide before planning their attacks.
This is the second blow to the Eras tour in the last couple of weeks. The first was the stabbing attack at a children’s dance studio in Southport, England, that left three dead and prompted right-wing anti-immigration riots across the country. (Let’s be clear: the 17-year-old suspect in the attacks was born in Britain.)
Canceling the shows is the right thing to do, although you do have to feel for the Swifties spent thousands to fly in from around the world to go to the shows.
This case has similar hallmarks to both the terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015 and the May 2017 Manchester concert bombing.
In Paris, three teams of three men spread out across the city. Three massacred people at the Bataclan during a Queens of the Stone Age show. Three shot up a series of cafes and restaurants before one of them blew himself up with a suicide vest. And three tried to get into a soccer game at the Stade de France while wearing explosive vests.
In Manchester, a radicalized man and his brother set out to cause carnage at the end of an Ariana Grande show. While one brother stayed at home, the older one went to the show with a powerful nail bomb in a backpack. He set it off at one of the exits of the venue, ultimately resulting in 22 deaths, and 1,017 injuries. A suicide bomb at one of the Vienna shows could have been a lot worse. (Police found traces of triacetone triperoxide in the home of the oldest Vienna suspect. This is the same explosive used in the Manchester bombing and a favourite of ISIS terrorists.)
The next shows on the Eras tour are the five gigs at Wembley Stadium in London. Given that at least a dozen terror attacks have been stopped across Europe over the last twelve months, expect security to be intense.
Meanwhile, Coldplay is set to play the same Vienna stadium August 21-25. We’ll see if they go ahead.
