Another adolescent, making it the third, has been arrested in connection with an ISIS-inspired terror attack on Taylor Swift’s Veinna Eras tour performance. This comes after event organizers canceled Taylor Swift’s Vienna-Eras Tour Concert owing to fears of a terrorist act aimed at ruining the event.
Austria’s interior minister revealed on Friday that an 18-year-old Iraqi national had been arrested as part of an investigation into an alleged ISIS-inspired plot to attack Taylor Swift’s concert in Vienna.
The Iraqi youth, the third person apprehended, is accused of having ties to the primary suspect, a 19-year-old Austrian with North Macedonian ancestry. The ministry reported that both adolescents had lately pledged allegiance to ISIS.
“A planned attack on a concert was successfully thwarted thanks to the timely intervention of the authorities. This success was achieved through extensive investigations that not only targeted the main suspects but also their network,” the ministry stated on Friday.
Authorities are “taking decisive action against anyone involved in terrorist activities or showing radical tendencies,” the ministry added.
While the Iraqi youngster is “not currently linked directly to the planned attack,” he was arrested as part of the “broad scope” of the ongoing inquiry, the ministry stated.
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The two key suspects, a 19-year-old and a 17-year-old, are in pre-trial detention and had demonstrated substantial behavioral changes prior to their arrests.
According to Franz Ruf, Austria’s director general for public security, the 19-year-old suspect resigned his job on July 25 after claiming to have “something big planned” and intended to detonate a device at the concert site.
Ruf said that the 19-year-old’s residence included explosive devices and detonators, as well as considerable ISIS propaganda material, 21,000 euros in counterfeit money, machetes, knives, and anabolic steroids. The 17-year-old had just terminated a relationship with his girlfriend.
A 15-year-old was also seized and questioned, but he has since been released.
Vienna was scheduled to be the penultimate stop of Swift’s European Eras tour. The US pop diva was set to play in Austria on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday before moving on to London’s Wembley Stadium for five nights, followed by Canada for the tour’s final dates in November and December.
The cancellation surprised fans who had flown from all over Europe and the world for the concerts, since Austrian authorities expected roughly 65,000 people to attend each of Swift’s Vienna events, with up to 20,000 more outside the stadium.
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