Taylor Swift concert terror plot suspect sought to kill self and ‘as many people as possible,’ officials say
(VIENNA, Austria) — Bomb-making materials were found in the home of one of two people suspected of planning a terror attack on upcoming Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna, authorities said Thursday, adding that both suspects appeared to be inspired by the Islamic State group and al-Qaeda.
The main suspect, a 19-year-old Austrian citizen, fully confessed to attack plans during an interrogation, according to Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, head of Austria’s Directorate of State Security and Intelligence.
The suspect was “clearly radicalized in the direction of the Islamic State” and allegedly intended to kill himself and “as many people as possible” outside the concert venue using knives and homemade explosives, Haijawi-Pirchner said at a news conference Thursday.
The 19-year-old, who was from the Austrian town of Ternitz and had North Macedonian roots, had been preparing for the attack since late July and drastically changed his appearance, according to Franz Ruf, the public security director at Austria’s Ministry of Interior. The 19-year-old researched bomb-making techniques and uploaded to the internet an oath of allegiance to the current leader of the Islamic State, Haijawi-Pirchner said.
A second suspect — a 17-year-old Austrian citizen — was arrested in Vienna on Wednesday afternoon. A 15-year-old Turkish citizen was also detained and questioned, according to Haijawi-Pirchner. No further suspects are being sought, Ruf said.
Each of the two suspects was known to police and both were said to have been involved in the direct preparation of the foiled attack, according to Haijawi-Pirchner. Most of the plans and preparations were made at the 19-year-old’s home, Ruf said.
The 15-year-old, who was interrogated, had been asked by the main suspect about ignition mechanisms, Haijawi-Pirchner said.
The 17-year-old suspect, who has Turkish-Croatian roots, was employed a few days ago at a facility company providing services at the concert venue and would have been working there, according to Haijawi-Pirchner. It was discovered during the investigation that he was on the grounds of Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadium, where Swift’s concerts were to be held.
Swift had concerts scheduled for Thursday, Friday and Saturday in Vienna.
When Ruf announced the arrests on Wednesday, he said security at the shows would be increased. Hours later, the concerts were canceled.
“We have no choice but to cancel the three scheduled shows for everyone’s safety,” a message from Barracuda Music said. “All tickets will be automatically refunded.”
The Vienna shows were expected to draw 65,000 concertgoers per day, with an additional 10,000 to 15,000 fans outside of the area, police said.
One of those fans planning to attend a Vienna show, Joelle Ferri, told ABC News that, despite the cancellation, Swifties have gathered to sing song and make friends.
“There are so many Swifties everywhere trading bracelets, wearing merch, wearing the outfits they were going to wear for the concert,” Ferri said. “This is genuinely the most beautiful thing I have experienced, seeing everyone come together after such a horrible thing happened and everyone kept their head high and made it a good experience for everyone.”
Another would-be concertgoer, Colleen Boltz, told ABC News she was at the airport in Minneapolis, en route to Vienna, when she learned the show was canceled.
“We still plan on going to Vienna and participating in the Swiftie gatherings. I’m meeting up with Swifties that I met online and it will still be a blast,” she said.
Boltz also has a ticket to one of Swift’s upcoming London shows. The pop star is set to return to London’s Wembley Stadium from Aug. 15 to Aug. 20.
“We really hope that she does not need to cancel London,” Boltz said.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan told Sky News on Thursday that the concerts will go on as scheduled.
(VIENNA, Austria) — Security measures have been increased for Taylor Swift’s concerts in Vienna, Austria, this week after two suspects were arrested for allegedly plotting a terror attack, authorities said.
A 19-year-old Austrian citizen was arrested Wednesday morning and a second suspect was arrested in the afternoon, according to Franz Ruf, director-general for public safety in the Ministry of the Interior.
The suspects allegedly radicalized themselves online, Ruf said at a press conference. The 19-year-old suspect allegedly pledged allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State in the beginning of July, Ruf said.
Vienna was a target of their planned attack and the 19-year-old suspect had a particular focus on Swift’s Vienna concert, Ruf said.
The pop star has concerts in Vienna this Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The shows are expected to draw 65,000 concertgoers per day, with an additional 10,000 to 15,000 fans outside of the area, police said.
Swift kicked off the massively successful “Eras Tour” in Glendale, Arizona, on March 18, 2023.
In October 2023, the pop star released a concert film chronicling the record-breaking tour, “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour,” that went on to break records of its own and earn a Golden Globe nomination.
At the 100th stop of the tour this summer in Liverpool, England, the 14-time Grammy winner told the audience the tour “has definitely been the most exhausting, all-encompassing, but most joyful, most rewarding, most wonderful thing that has ever happened in my life thus far.”
The “Eras Tour” will end in Vancouver, Canada, on Dec. 8.
ABC News’ Carson Blackwelder contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Following an election clouded by irregularities, the Biden administration on Monday called on Venezuela’s electoral authority to release detailed polling data to support its claim that the country’s autocratic leader Nicolas Maduro has secured a third six-year term — a contested outcome that could have significant ramifications for the region and fuel debate over immigration in the run-up to the U.S. presidential election.
“We have serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a news conference in Tokyo.
“It’s critical that every vote be counted fairly and transparently that election officials immediately share information with the opposition and independent observers without delay,” he continued.
Despite challenges from Maduro’s political opposition and unanswered questions from South American officials acting as impartial observers, Venezuela’s electoral council, which is aligned with Maduro’s regime, formalized the results of the vote, effectively handing the ruler another six-year term.
Maduro has responded with defiance.
“We have always been victims of the powerful,” Maduro asserted during a nationally televised ceremony on Monday. “An attempt is being made to impose a coup d’état in Venezuela again of a fascist and counterrevolutionary nature.”
María Corina Machado, the opposition popular leader, asserted that, despite Maduro’s claims, her party’s candidate had won an “overwhelming” victory and that the reported polling results were “impossible.”
In the weeks preceding the election, the prospect of Maduro clinging to power has stoked fears of increased economic turmoil and political violence that experts say could spark another exodus from the country.
Almost 8 million Venezuelans — roughly a quarter of the country’s population — have left the country over the last decade, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency.
That diaspora has exacerbated irregular migration to the U.S. In 2023, border patrol agents encountered Venezuelan migrants attempting to enter through the southern border nearly 335,000 times, data from the Department of Homeland Security shows.
The Biden administration has attempted to curb the number of crossings through multiple initiatives, including by introducing a new policy allowing Venezuelans to apply for entry to the U.S. from abroad, resuming deportations of Venezuelan migrants, and even using diplomatic leverage to push Maduro to hold the country’s most recent election.
Despite the changes and modest improvements to Venezuela’s economy, data shows that the number of the country’s nationals crossing between checkpoints on the U.S.-Mexico border has remained elevated. Polling conducted by a Venezuelan-based research firm earlier this year found that roughly a quarter of the country’s current population was considering emigrating if Maduro won the election.
Senior Biden administration officials defended their handling of Maduro’s government, including using economic incentives to entice Maduro to take steps aimed at moving the country towards democracy.
“That Venezuela did, in fact, hold an election yesterday, which allowed an opposition candidate to be on the ballot and for a voting process to unfold only came about as a result of the calibrations that we’ve done with our sanctions policy over the last year,” one official said.
The driving factors behind Venezuela’s immigration crisis are also complicated. A high-ranking State Department official who served under President Donald Trump told the Washington Post he warned the former administration that imposing hardline sanctions would “grind the Venezuelan economy into dust & have huge human consequences, one of which would be out-migration.”
The Biden administration has largely kept Trump’s economic penalties on Venezuela in place, but it has made some notable carveout, including granting authorizations to select companies permitting them to operate in the country’s lucrative oil sector.
In the wake of Maduro’s handling of the election, officials indicated that they would not revoke existing sanctions but that they would rethink their approach to Venezuela based on whether the government increases transparency surrounding the election.
“We’re watching. The world watching. I won’t get ahead of a decision hasn’t been made here in terms of consequences. We’re going to hold our judgment until we see the actual tabulation of the results,” National Security Spokesperson John Kirby said on Monday.
(NEW YORK) — Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Egypt on Wednesday for fresh talks on an Israel-Hamas cease-fire, and as tension with Hezbollah persists at the Israel-Lebanon border.
Here’s how the news is developing:
11,000 students killed in Gaza, education ministry says
The Palestinian Ministry of Education said Tuesday that some 11,000 students have been killed and more than 17,000 others have been injured in the Gaza Strip since Israel’s campaign there started on Oct. 7.
The ministry also said 500 schools and universities have been bombed across the territory in almost one year of war.
Islamic Jihad rocket commander ‘eliminated’ in Gaza, IDF says
The Israel Defense Forces said it “eliminated” the head of the Islamic Jihad militia group’s southern rocket and missile unit in a Monday airstrike on a humanitarian zone in southern Gaza.
Ahmed Aish Salame al-Hashash was the commander of the Islamic Jihad’s rocket forces in the southern Rafah area, the IDF said in a statement. He was “an important source of knowledge of rocket fire within the Islamic Jihad terror organization in Gaza,” the IDF added.
Al-Hashash was killed while “operating inside the Humanitarian Area in Khan Younis,” the IDF said, referring to one of the areas designated by the Israeli military as safer locations for civilians amid the devastating campaign in Gaza.
“Prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance, and additional intelligence,” the IDF said.
The IDF often launches strikes inside Gaza humanitarian zones in pursuit of militant leaders.
Gaza Health Ministry identifies more than 34,300 people killed
The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry published a 649-page document identifying 34,344 people killed in the strip between Oct.7, 2023 and Aug. 31, 2024.
The document includes the name, age, gender and identification number of each person killed.
The first 13 pages of the document include names of people all under 1 year old.
The document only includes the names of those the Health Ministry said it has been able to identify. Thousands more who are a part of the overall death toll are considered missing, the ministry said.
The current death toll in Gaza is 41,226 as of Sept. 16, according to the Hamas-run ministry.
Blinken to travel to Egypt
Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Egypt this week to discuss efforts to reach a Gaza cease-fire and hostage release deal, the State Department said.
Blinken will travel to Egypt Wednesday through Friday to co-chair the opening of the U.S.-Egypt Strategic Dialogue with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, the department said.
He will also meet with Egyptian officials “to discuss ongoing efforts to reach a ceasefire in Gaza that secures the release of all hostages, alleviates the suffering of the Palestinian people, and helps establish broader regional security,” the State Department said in a statement.
State Department doesn’t have timeline on new cease-fire proposal
State Department spokesperson Matt Miller declined to predict when a new Gaza cease-fire and hostage release deal proposal might be ready.
“We continue to engage with our partners in the region, most specifically with Egypt and Qatar, about what that proposal will contain, and making sure — or trying to see that it’s a proposal that can get the parties to an ultimate agreement,” Miller told reporters Monday.
“I don’t have a timetable for you other than to say that we are working expeditiously to try to develop that proposal, try to find something that would bring both the parties to say yes and to formally submit it,” Miller added.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken had previously said more than a week ago that a proposal would be presented to both Israel and Hamas “in the coming days.”
Miller said Monday that — just like in the negotiations overall — the main hurdles for creating the new proposal were the security situation in the Philadelphi corridor and the number of hostages and Palestinian prisoners that would be released.
‘Trajectory is clear’ at Israel-Lebanon border: Gallant
Time is running out for a diplomatic solution to the ongoing conflict at the Israel-Lebanon border, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in an overnight phone call.
“Hezbollah continues to ‘tie itself’ to Hamas — the trajectory is clear,” Gallant told Austin per a readout from the Israeli Defense Ministry.
Gallant “reiterated Israel’s commitment to the removal of Hezbollah presence in southern Lebanon, and to enabling the safe return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes,” the defense ministry said.
Cross-border fighting between the Israel Defense Forces and Hezbollah — which is aligned with Iran and Hamas through the so-called “Axis of Resistance” — has been near-constant since Oct. 8.
Tens of thousands of Israelis have left their homes in the north of the country amid the fighting, with Israeli leaders repeatedly threatening a significant military operation to pacify Hezbollah forces operating in southern Lebanon.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a Sunday statement that the “current situation will not continue. This requires a change in the balance of forces on our northern border. We will do whatever is necessary to return our residents securely to their homes.”
-ABC News’ Jordana Miller
Israel now says Houthi missile was hit by interceptor
A missile described by the Houthis as a “new hypersonic ballistic missile” was hit by an Israeli interceptor, Israeli military officials said Sunday, after initially saying it got through its defenses and fell in an open area.
An Israeli interceptor hit the missile fired into central Israel from Yemen, causing it to fragment, according to Israeli officials. The missile was not destroyed, but caused no damage, the Israeli officials said.
“The conclusion into the review of the surface-to-surface missile that was fired this morning is that there was a hit on the target from an interceptor, as a result of which the target fragmented but was not destroyed,” an Israeli military official said in a statement.
The Houthi movement claimed responsibility for the missile attack, claiming in a statement that it was aimed at an “important military target” in the Tel Aviv region. The Houthis claimed the missile flew some 1,267 miles in less than 12 minutes and that Israeli anti-missile defenses “failed to intercept” the weapon.
The Israel Defense Forces initially confirmed to ABC News that its defenses failed to intercept the missile but changed its conclusions upon further investigation.
-ABC News’ Victoria Beaule
IDF: ‘High probability’ 3 hostages were killed by Israeli airstrike in November
On Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces released the results of its investigation into the circumstances surrounding the deaths of three hostages, whose bodies were recovered from Gaza by IDF forces in December.
The three hostages — two soldiers, Ron Sherman and Nik Beizer, and civilian Elia Toledano — were killed “as a byproduct” of an Israeli airstrike on the compound where they were being held, according to the investigation. The IDF said the strike was targeting a Hamas commander, and that they believed the hostages were being held elsewhere.
“The findings of the investigation suggest a high probability that the three were killed as a result of a byproduct of an IDF airstrike, during the elimination of the Hamas Northern Brigade commander, Ahmed Ghandour, on November 10th, 2023,” the IDF said Sunday in a statement.
-ABC News’ Jordana Miller
Netanyahu vows to inflict ‘high price’ for Houthi missile attack
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to retaliate against the Houthi movement after a missile fired from Yemen fell in central Israel on Sunday morning.
“This morning, the Houthis launched a surface-to-surface missile from Yemen at our territory,” Netanyahu said before a cabinet meeting. “They should know that we exact a high price for any attempt to attack us.”
“Whoever needs a reminder of this, is invited to visit the port of Hodeidah,” the prime minister added, referring to Israel’s bombing of the strategic Yemeni port in July after a Houthi drone strike killed one person in Tel Aviv.
“Whoever attacks us will not evade our strike,” Netanyahu said.