All three Taylor Swift concerts scheduled for Vienna were canceled after authorities uncovered a terror plot on Wednesday.
The shows were supposed to run Thursday through Saturday at Ernst Happel Stadium. But in the morning, cops arrested two men accused of planning a terrorist attack.
A 19-year-old Austrian man who pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State was arrested in Ternitz, south of the Austrian capital, authorities announced. The teenager was not identified further.
Another suspect was arrested in Vienna, though police did not identify the second man or describe his role in the plot.
Cops said they searched the 19-year-old’s residence and found chemical substances, NBC News reported. Investigators were still determining whether he was capable of building a bomb with the items he had.
There was “a focus by the 19-year-old perpetrator on the Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna,” according to Franz Ruf, public security director at Austria’s interior ministry. He had taken “preparatory actions” ahead of the concerts, Ruf said.
Investigators believe the teenager and his accomplice were radicalized on the internet. Officials initially said they would simply beef up security at all three Swift shows, but in the afternoon announced the cancellations.
Swift’s “Eras Tour” concerts were expected to draw 65,000 people each day, with thousands more fans listening outside the stadium.
A different Taylor Swift event was recently the site of deadly violence elsewhere in Europe, when a 17-year-old attacked a Swift-themed dance party in the U.K. and killed three little girls.
Axel Muganwa Rudakubana, who will turn 18 in a few weeks, has been charged with killing Bebe King, 6; Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7; and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, 9, at the event in Southport, about 10 miles north of Liverpool. Another 10 people were injured in the attack.
“The horror of yesterday’s attack in Southport is washing over me continuously and I’m just completely in shock,” Swift said afterward in a statement. “These were just little kids at a dance class. I am at a complete loss for how to ever convey my sympathies to these families.”
The U.K. was also the site of a notable concert tragedy in 2017, when brothers Salman Abedi and Hashem Abedi bombed an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena, killing 22 people and wounding more than 1,000.
With News Wire Services
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