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Taylor Swift has cancelled three concerts in Vienna after Austrian authorities said they had uncovered an Islamist terror plot targeting the singer-songwriter’s fans in the city this week.
Austrian police arrested a 19-year-old Austrian citizen on Wednesday morning and a second individual of undisclosed age and nationality the same afternoon.
Franz Ruf, the director-general for public security at Austria’s interior ministry said on Wednesday evening that the arrests were made to thwart a planned terror attack at the Ernst-Happel-Stadium, where Swift was due to perform on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
“With confirmation of a planned terrorist attack . . . we have no choice but to cancel the three scheduled shows for everyone’s safety,” a spokesperson for Barracuda Music, which organised Swift’s performances in Austria, said.
Tickets would be refunded within the next 10 days, it added.
According to Ruf, the 19-year-old was arrested in Lower Austria — the region surrounding Vienna — after being kept under surveillance by the country’s intelligence officials.
Ruf said the suspect “swore allegiance” to the current leader of the terror group Islamic State last month in an online communication obtained by Austrian security agencies.
He was subsequently monitored and officials determined he was planning a possible attack on Swift concertgoers this week.
The individual had begun stockpiling explosive material, according to intelligence officials. There was a “concrete suspicion of danger”, Ruf said.
He confirmed a second arrest had been made but declined to provide further details. The investigation is still ongoing and Austrian authorities are rushing to identify whether others connected to those arrested may also be part of the plot.
More than 170,000 Swift fans have been left bitterly disappointed in Vienna by the last-minute cancellation of the concerts.
Austrian authorities offered to significantly boost policing for the events, but Barracuda felt the potential risks of an attack were too great, given outstanding questions over the plot.
Austrian authorities said a “large-scale” operation was under way.
It is barely four years since a lone Islamist gunman rampaged through Vienna, killing four and injuring dozens in Austria’s worst terrorist incident.
Austrian authorities have been on heightened alert since — particularly because of weaknesses exposed in the country’s intelligence and security agencies in the lead-up to the 2020 attack.
The government pledged a root-and-branch reform of Austrian intelligence as a result, with increased resources and political attention given to a new domestic security agency, the State Security and Intelligence Directorate (DSN).
Last year, the DSN’s chief, Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, disclosed the agency had disrupted a planned Islamist terror attack on Vienna’s annual pride parade. Three teenage men were arrested and accused by the agency of plotting to kill and maim pride attendees using air guns, sabres and axes, and planning to ram the crowds with a car.
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