Austrian police have arrested two people they suspect of planning a terror attack on a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna.
A 19-year-old man was arrested an hour south of the Austrian capital on Wednesday afternoon, police said in a press conference, and a search of his home revealed unnamed chemical substances. Police gave no details about the second person, except that the arrest took place on Wednesday afternoon in Vienna.
Police will step up security checks at the three concerts, starting on Thursday evening, but said there were no plans at present to cancel the performances.
Authorities said the 19-year-old man had been under surveillance for some time, had radicalised in recent months and, in early July, had sworn an oath of allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) terrorist organisation.
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Vienna police chief Gerhard Pürstl said the young man had been gathering information on several large events in the capital, including the Swift concerts.
He said the arrests had “minimised” the concrete danger to the event and attendees, but that general security concerns remained.
Police would step up “antiterrorism measures”, including plainclothes officers, around the sold-out concert hall.
“We will also use special forces and police dogs,” added Mr Pürstl. “We have passed on the information we have to the concert promoter.”
According to Austrian media reports, the tip-off that lead to the arrests came from a foreign security service.
Because of additional checks, in particular at the entrances, police recommended that concertgoers plan an extra hour to enter the venue.
The arrests come four years after a suspected Islamist attack in November 2020 that left four people dead in central Vienna.
After a four-hour manhunt, the perpetrator, a 20-year-old Austrian born man with parents from North Macedonia’s Albanian minority, was shot dead. Investigators said the man, who acted alone, was a sympathiser of Islamic State.
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