Teenager charged over plot to attack Taylor Swift concert in Vienna

German authorities have charged a teenager over a failed terror plot to attack a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna last August.

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The teenager, a Syrian national identified as “Mohammed A”, was indicted on charges of supporting a foreign terror group and helping another suspect plan a terrorist attack. The juvenile is reportedly not in custody.

“Mohammad A has adhered since April 2024 at the latest to the ideology of the terrorist organisation Islamic State (IS),” Germany’s federal public prosecutor said in a statement, per BBC.

“Between mid-July and August 2024, he was in contact with a young adult from Austria who was planning a bomb attack on a concert by singer Taylor Swift in Vienna.”

The teenager is one of several suspects who were arrested in August 2024, just days before three Taylor Swift concerts were set to take place from August 8 to 10 at the Ernst-Happel-Stadion in Vienna, Austria as part of the popstar’s ‘Eras’ tour.

All three Vienna shows were cancelled hours after police announced that they had narrowly foiled an ISIS plot to attack one of the three concerts. Swift later commented on the cancellations, calling them “devastating”, while saying she was “grateful to the authorities because thanks to them, we were grieving concerts and not lives”.

The main suspect of the terror plot, a then 19-year-old man, was arrested in Ternitz, south of Vienna, before the concerts following a tip-off by the CIA. A second person was also arrested in the Austrian capital around the same time, followed by a third suspect days later.

The 19-year-old man reportedly fully confessed to planning the terror attack in the days following his arrest. A police search of his house reportedly led to found chemicals, explosives, knives and machete knives being found. Authorities also identified Islamic State and al-Qaida material at the residence.

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