OAN Staff Avril Elfi
Thursday, August 29, 2024 1:06 PM
The CIA has said that Muslim suspects arrested in connection with plotting a terror attack at a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna, Austria, were planning to kill “huge numbers” of people.
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On Wednesday, CIA Deputy Director David Cohen spoke at the Intelligence and National Security Summit in Maryland, where he discussed the planned attack at Swift's Vienna concert.
“They were planning to kill a huge number of people at the concert, tens of thousands of people, including many Americans, and the planning was well advanced,” Cohen said at the summit. “The Austrian authorities were able to make the arrests because our own authorities and intelligence partners provided them with information about what this ISIS-linked group was planning.”
“As a result, hundreds of lives have undoubtedly been saved,” he added.
Three suspects, aged 17, 18 and 19, were arrested in connection with the planned attack. The 18-year-old Iraqi national said:[taken] The suspect had “pledged allegiance” to the Islamic extremist group ISIS, and intelligence officials confirmed he had been encouraged by ISIS and al-Qaeda to carry out the attack.
They also said they found bomb-making materials at the 19-year-old man's home.
Omar Hajjawi Pirchner of Austria's National Security Intelligence Service said the 19-year-old suspect admitted to the plan during interrogation.
Hajjawi-Pilchner went on to say that the suspect was “clearly an extremist with Islamic State leanings” who allegedly intended to kill himself and “as many people as possible” with a homemade explosive device outside the concert venue.
Soon after, all three of Swift's sold-out shows in Vienna were cancelled in the wake of the arrest.
After the news broke, Swift took to her social media platforms to thank authorities for their hard work, while saying it was “devastating” that she had to cancel the show while upsetting her fans.
“Hearing the reasons for the cancellation left me with a new sense of fear and immense guilt for the many people who had planned to come,” Swift wrote. “They left us grieving the concert, not our lives.”
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