A 19-year-old Austrian man has given a “full and detailed confession” about his plan to detonate a bomb, “killing himself and others”, outside a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna.
The three concerts have been cancelled after police raided the man’s home, southwest of Vienna, on Wednesday. They discovered explosives and sodium peroxide as well as cables, detonators and timers.
At a press conference in Vienna, police said they had also recovered knives, an air pistol, €21,000 in counterfeit notes, a blue police car siren-light, and anabolic steroids. On a seized phone were instructions on bomb-building and propaganda from Islamic State terrorist organisation.
Security services said the perpetrator had no ticket for the concert but planned to “kill himself and a large group of people either today or tomorrow” near the stadium.
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“He was clearly radicalised and found it right to kill non-believers,” said Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, head of Austria’s Directorate of State Security and Intelligence (DSN).
It received a tip-off from US intelligence that led to the arrests and the concert cancellations. Ticket holders have been told they will receive full refunds within 10 working days.
On Wednesday afternoon, special forces arrested a 17-year-old suspected accomplice to the plot near the Ernst Happel Stadium, the venue where the concerts were due to be held in Vienna. Investigators confirmed he had worked there previously as a concert steward for a facility management firm.
Austrian interior minister Gerhard Karner said the situation “was – and is – serious”.
“What’s clear, though,” he added, “is that we were able to avoid a tragedy.”
The 19-year-old main suspect from Ternitz, 70km southwest of Vienna, was named locally as Mohammed, and reportedly worked at a local steel plant. He was born in Austria with parents from North Macedonia’s Albanian minority. After stealing chemicals, he quit his job last month telling his employer he had “big plans”.
Officials in Vienna said they had detained two other young men, with Austrian-Turkish backgrounds, and that “at present we are not seeking any further people on the run”.
It was not clear on Thursday if any of those detained over the plot had been recruited as stewards for the three concerts, with 170,000 attendees expected.
Dr Franz Ruf, interior ministry director of public security, said both main suspects had undergone “clear social changes” in recent weeks.
The 17-year-old had recently broken up with his girlfriend while the 19-year-old man, after taking an oath of allegiance to Islamic State last month, had “directed his focus on preparations for a terrorist attack and he changed his appearance completely”.
“Their preparations in Ternitz focused on making explosives,” said Dr Ruf.
Local and international Taylor Swift fans took to social media to express their disappointment.
Political scientist Natascha Strobl wrote that she was “devastated”.
“I’ve been looking forward to this for a year, made all my armbands, Taylor Swift in my hometown,” she wrote. “And now it’s not happening, I have no words, she will never return to Vienna, that’s just how it is.”
Swift fans from around the world posted their solidarity on X and TikTok, with some urging people to stream the song Long Live until it hits the top of the charts.
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer conceded the cancelled sold-out shows were a “a bitter disappointment” for fans – but said the situation had been “very serious”.
“Thanks to the intensive co-operation of our police and a newly-established DSN (Directorate of State Security and Intelligence) with foreign services,” he said, “the threat was spotted early, combated and a tragedy prevented.”
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