Washington:

Pop megastar Taylor Swift on Wednesday broke her silence about the cancellation of three Vienna concerts over an alleged suicide attack plot, saying the incident filled her with “fear” and “guilt.”
“Having our Vienna shows cancelled was devastating. The reason for the cancellations filled me with a new sense of fear, and a tremendous amount of guilt because so many had planned on coming to those shows,” the American said in a post on social media platform Instagram.

The Vienna shows, part of the European leg of Swift’s record-breaking “Eras” tour, were cancelled after authorities warned of a terror plot by sympathizers of the Islamic State armed group.

Police have detained three suspects over the alleged attack threat, with the United States saying it shared intelligence to assist in the investigation.

The main suspect, a 19-year-old Austrian with North Macedonian roots, had allegedly confessed, saying he “intended to carry out an attack using explosives and knives,” according to Austrian domestic intelligence agency (DSN) head Omar Haijawi-Pirchner.

In the social media post Wednesday, Swift thanked the authorities.

“I was also so grateful to the authorities because thanks to them, we were grieving concerts and not lives. I was heartened by the love and unity I saw in the fans who banded together,” she said.

The European leg of Swift’s sold-out tour began in Paris in May and has taken in Sweden, Portugal, Spain, Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, Germany and Poland.

It concluded on Tuesday with five shows at London’s Wembley stadium.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Vienna:

The lawyer of the main suspect in a foiled plot to carry out an attack at Taylor Swift concert in Vienna on Sunday sought to play down the seriousness of the plan, saying her client was only “playing with ideas”.

Swift’s three planned concerts this week were cancelled after Austrian authorities discovered a plot allegedly led by a 19-year-old to carry out an ISIS-inspired suicide attack at a soccer stadium where tens of thousands of fans were planning to attend the shows.

Austrian investigators said the youth had recently sworn a pledge to ISIS and had made a full confession after police raided his house, seizing chemicals, machetes and other devices the plotters planned to use in a bomb attack.

Lawyer Ina-Christin Stiglitz told Reuters the youth had only been involved with ISIS for the past month.

“It interested him,” she said, suggesting that her client had not really intended to carry out a serious attack.

“It was just playing with ideas,” she said. “He says the bomb wasn’t of good enough quality, it wouldn’t have worked.”

He had researched online on how to build a bomb, she added.

Among three other teenagers Austrian police have detained in the investigation was a 17-year-old youth, whom Stiglitz said her client had described as his “best friend and neighbour”.

Neighbours of the 19-year-old in the small town of Ternitz expressed shock at his arrest, describing him as reserved but friendly. One of few hints pointing to potential radicalization was that he had recently grown a long beard, they said.

Responding to a question about why he had changed his appearance, his lawyer said: “He wanted to be cool.”

Chancellor Karl Nehammer said earlier that Austria’s intelligence agencies should have greater power to monitor communications on messaging apps to stop extremists.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)