CIA say Taylor Swift Vienna terrorists planned to kill “tens of thousands” of fans

nme.com:

Taylor Swift Vienna gigs were aiming to kill “tens of thousands” of fans.Earlier this month, all three of the pop star’s ‘Eras Tour’ shows in Vienna were cancelled after it was revealed that two people had been arrested for allegedly plotting a terror attack during the gigs.The ‘Midnights’ singer was set to play at Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadium on Thursday (August 8), Friday (9) and Saturday (10), but event organiser Barracuda Music confirmed that it had “no choice but to cancel the three scheduled shows for everyone’s safety”.In relation to the terror plot on the Vienna shows, a 19-year-old main suspect was arrested in Ternitz, south of Vienna, and a second person in the Austrian capital.

It was widely reported that the former had pledged an oath of allegiance to the Islamic State group.Now, according to the CIA’s deputy director David Cohen, the terrorist who had planned the attack wanted to kill “a huge number” of people at the event (per BBC).Cohen addressed the failed plot during the annual Intelligence and National Security Summit on Wednesday (August 28) in Maryland.

He shared that the intelligence provided by the agency to Austrian authorities allowed them to disrupt the plot and save “hundreds of lives”.“They were plotting to kill a huge number, tens of thousands of people at this concert … and were quite advanced in this,” Cohen said (per Euronews).He continued: “The Austrians were able to make those arrests because the agency and our partners in the intelligence community provided them information about what this ISIS-connected group was planning to do.”The main suspect – who has not been named in line with Austrian privacy rules – fully confessed to planning a terror attack at one of the shows in Vienna.