A CIA official said those arrested in connection with the foiled terrorist attacks on Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour” concerts in Austria planned to kill “tens of thousands of people.”
At an intelligence and national security summit in Maryland on Wednesday, CIA Deputy Director David Cohen said the agency had provided Austrian authorities with information that enabled them to “arrest four individuals who were planning an attack on a Taylor Swift concert.”
“They had explosives, they had bomb-making materials, and they had access to the venue,” Cohen said. “They planned to kill a huge number of people, tens of thousands at that concert, including, I’m sure, many Americans.”
“The Austrians were able to make these arrests because the agency and our intelligence partners provided them with information about the plans of this ISIS-affiliated group,” he added, saying that “undoubtedly hundreds of lives were saved.”
The pop star was scheduled to perform three shows at Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadium from August 8 to 10 in front of an estimated 200,000 spectators.
However, Austrian concert promoter Barracuda Music announced the cancellation via Instagram, stating: “After government officials confirmed a planned terrorist attack at the Ernst Happel Stadium, we have no choice but to cancel the three planned shows for everyone’s safety.”
Swift herself remained silent about the concert cancellations until she had finished the European part of her tour.
“The cancellation of our shows in Vienna was devastating. The reason for the cancellations filled me with a new sense of fear and enormous guilt,” she wrote in an Instagram post on August 21.
“But I was also so grateful to the authorities because thanks to them we mourned concerts and not live performances,” she added.
