Thursday, August 29, 2024 - A CIA official has revealed the service helped foil an ISIS terror attack that was intended to kill 'tens of thousands' of fans at Taylor Swift's Vienna concert.
Speaking at an Intelligence and National Security Summit
in Maryland on Wednesday, CIA Deputy Director David Cohen said the agency
provided Austrian authorities with critical information about four people who
were connected to the Islamic State and were planning to attack the concert.
'They were plotting to kill a huge number, tens of thousands
of people at this concert, I am sure many Americans,' Cohen said, reported
the New York Times.
The official added that some of the individuals arrested
were found with bomb-making materials and had direct access to the venue, where
three Eras Tour shows were set to take place.
The shows, which were set to host an audience of 200,000,
from August 8 to August 10, at Vienna's Ernst Happel Stadium were quickly
cancelled following the arrests.
On August 7, Austrian authorities arrested two people
accused of plotting a terror attack, and others were arrested in following
days.
Cohen did not clarify how the CIA had leaned about the
planned attack but said: 'I can tell you within my agency and others, there
were people who thought that was a really good day for Langley,' referring to
the CIA headquarters, 'And not just for the Swifties in the workforce.'
Three people have been arrested in connection with the
terror plot, including 19-year-old Austrian ISIS fanatic, Beran A, who
had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and set his sights on
Swift's tour as a target.
He is currently considered to be the main suspect.
The other arrested suspects are a 17-year-old Austrian and
an 18-year-old Iraqi, but their names have not yet been released.
Beran A. was revealed to have been building a bomb in his
parent's back garden and earlier this month it was reported the teen was
radicalized by notorious hate preacher Abul Baraa in Berlin, according to
German intelligence sources.
German magazine Profil, it was claimed that Beran A.
attended a business school in Neunkirchen, where he had to repeat a year and
was repeatedly violent towards girls, former classmates said.
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