A bloodbath was narrowly averted. On Thursday, August 8, Austrian authorities said that the young Islamist they had arrested the day before had been preparing to commit a suicide attack at one of American star Taylor Swift's three concerts scheduled to take place in Vienna this weekend. The 19-year-old had "confessed and said that he intended to carry out an attack using explosives and knives," Austrian domestic intelligence chief Omar Haijawi-Pirchner said, at a press conference on Thursday, August 8. "His aim was to kill a large number of people and then himself, either today or tomorrow, during one of the concerts," Haijawi-Pirchner said, before giving a few more details about the young man.

He is an Austrian national whose family originates from Northern Macedonia. According to the Vienna authorities, he had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) organization in early July. In a video posted on the Internet at the end of July, the young man announced that he had quit his job with the intention of undertaking "big projects," without giving any further details.

Interviewed by the Austrian TV station Puls 24, one of his neighbors described him as a "withdrawn" young man, who had been sporting a "Taliban-style" beard of late. Searches carried out at his home in Ternitz, Lower Austria, uncovered chemical and explosive substances, €21,000 in counterfeit money, IS propaganda material, as well as machetes, knives and blank ammunition.

Three arrests

The head of Austria's intelligence services also announced that a 17-year-old man had been arrested on Wednesday, August 7, while working for a subcontracting company operating at the Ernst-Happel stadium, the country's largest, located between the center of Vienna and the banks of the Danube, where Swift was due to perform. The young man, who has Turkish and Croatian origins, was apprehended in Vienna on Wednesday afternoon, according to the Austrian authorities. Described as "radicalized," he was already known to the police.

On Friday morning, Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner announced that an 18-year-old had been taken into custody on Thursday evening, in Vienna, after allegedly being in contact with the main suspect. "He had been in contact with the main perpetrator, but is not directly connected to the attack plans," Karner said. "But, as was found out a few days ago, he took an oath of allegiance specifically to the IS on August 6." The 18-year-old "comes from the social environment" of the main suspect, Karner said.

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