The CIA’s deputy director announced Wednesday that intelligence from the agency played a key role in thwarting a terrorist attack on a recent Taylor Swift concert in Vienna. The agency provided Austrian authorities with information on four suspected terrorists with links to the Islamic State, which resulted in arrests on August 7 and in the days that followed. New York Times reported. “The Austrians were able to make these arrests because the agency and our intelligence partners provided them with information about what this ISIS-affiliated group was up to,” David S. Cohen said at the annual Intelligence and National Security Summit outside Washington DC. Three suspects, men ages 17 to 19, were arrested; a fourth, 15, was questioned but not arrested, Fox News reports.
“They planned to kill a huge number of people at this concert, tens of thousands, certainly many Americans,” Cohen said. Swift canceled three of her Vienna concerts after the plot was exposed and later spoke of the “devastating” experience. Austrian authorities say they found bomb-making materials and homemade explosives in the home of at least one suspect, and ISIS and al-Qaeda materials in the home of one of the teenagers. (More reporting from the Central Intelligence Agency.)
