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CIA Official: Suspects in Foiled Plot to Attack Taylor Swift Shows Aimed to Kill 'Tens Of Thousands'

Security officers stand outside Wembley Stadium ahead of a Taylor Swift concert, following the cancellation of three Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna because of a planned attack, in London, Britain, August 15, 2024. REUTERS/Toby Melville
Security officers stand outside Wembley Stadium ahead of a Taylor Swift concert, following the cancellation of three Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna because of a planned attack, in London, Britain, August 15, 2024. REUTERS/Toby Melville
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CIA Official: Suspects in Foiled Plot to Attack Taylor Swift Shows Aimed to Kill 'Tens Of Thousands'

Security officers stand outside Wembley Stadium ahead of a Taylor Swift concert, following the cancellation of three Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna because of a planned attack, in London, Britain, August 15, 2024. REUTERS/Toby Melville
Security officers stand outside Wembley Stadium ahead of a Taylor Swift concert, following the cancellation of three Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna because of a planned attack, in London, Britain, August 15, 2024. REUTERS/Toby Melville

The suspects in the foiled plot to attack Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna earlier this month sought to kill “tens of thousands” of fans before the CIA discovered intelligence that disrupted the planning and led to arrests, the agency's deputy director said.
The CIA notified Austrian authorities of the scheme, which allegedly included links to the ISIS group. The intelligence and subsequent arrests ultimately led to the cancellation of three sold-out Eras Tour shows, devastating fans who had traveled across the globe to see Swift in concert.
CIA Deputy Director David Cohen addressed the failed plot during the annual Intelligence and National Security Summit, held this week in Maryland, The Associated Press said.
“They were plotting to kill a huge number — tens of thousands of people at this concert, including I am sure many Americans — and were quite advanced in this," Cohen said Wednesday. “The Austrians were able to make those arrests because the agency and our partners in the intelligence community provided them information about what this ISIS-connected group was planning to do.”
Austrian officials said the main suspect, a 19-year-old Austrian man, was inspired by the ISIS group. He allegedly planned to attack outside the stadium, where upwards of 30,000 fans were expected to gather, with knives or homemade explosives. Another 65,000 fans were likely to be inside the venue. Investigators discovered chemical substances and technical devices during a raid of the suspect's home.
The 19-year-old’s lawyer has said the allegations were “overacting at its best,” and contended Austrian authorities were “presenting this exaggeratedly” in order to get new surveillance powers.
Swift broke her silence about the cancellations last week after her London shows had concluded.
“Having our Vienna shows canceled was devastating,” she wrote in a statement posted to Instagram. “The reason for the cancellations filled me with a new sense of fear, and a tremendous amount of guilt because so many people had planned on coming to those shows.”
She thanked authorities — “thanks to them, we were grieving concerts and not lives,” she wrote — and said she waited to speak until the European leg of her Eras Tour concluded to prioritize safety.
“Let me be very clear: I am not going to speak about something publicly if I think doing so might provoke those who would want to harm the fans who come to my shows,” she wrote.
Concert organizer Barracuda Music said it canceled the three-night Vienna run that would have begun Aug. 8 because the arrests made in connection to the conspiracy were too close to showtime.
The main suspect and a 17-year-old were taken into custody on Aug. 6, the day before the cancellations were announced. A third suspect, 18, was arrested Aug. 8.
The shows in London, the next stop after Vienna, came on the heels of a stabbing at a Swift-themed dance class that left three little girls dead in the UK In a statement issued after the Southport attack, Swift said she was “just completely in shock” and “at a complete loss for how to ever convey my sympathies to these families.” News outlets reported that Swift met with some of the survivors backstage in London.
The Vienna plot also drew comparisons to a 2017 attack by a suicide bomber at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, that killed 22 people. The bomb detonated at the end of Grande’s concert as thousands of young fans were leaving, becoming the deadliest extremist attack in the United Kingdom in recent years.
Cohen on Wednesday praised the CIA's work in preventing the planned violence, saying that other counterterrorism “successes” in foiling plots typically go unheralded.
“I can tell you within my agency, and I'm sure in others, there were people who thought that was a really good day for Langley,” he said, referring to the CIA headquarters. “And not just the Swifties in my workforce.”
The record-smashing tour is on hiatus until the fall.

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US Forces Ready with a 'Range of Options' to Deal with South China Sea Aggression, US Admiral Says

US Indo-Pacific Command Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo, left, and Philippines military chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., shake hands after a press conference on the Mutual Defense Board-Security Engagement Board held at the Philippine Military Academy in Baguio, northern Philippines on Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
US Indo-Pacific Command Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo, left, and Philippines military chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., shake hands after a press conference on the Mutual Defense Board-Security Engagement Board held at the Philippine Military Academy in Baguio, northern Philippines on Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
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US Forces Ready with a 'Range of Options' to Deal with South China Sea Aggression, US Admiral Says

US Indo-Pacific Command Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo, left, and Philippines military chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., shake hands after a press conference on the Mutual Defense Board-Security Engagement Board held at the Philippine Military Academy in Baguio, northern Philippines on Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
US Indo-Pacific Command Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo, left, and Philippines military chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., shake hands after a press conference on the Mutual Defense Board-Security Engagement Board held at the Philippine Military Academy in Baguio, northern Philippines on Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

American forces are ready with a “range of options” to deal with increasing acts of aggression in the disputed South China Sea if ordered to carry them out jointly and after consultations with treaty ally the Philippines, a US admiral said Thursday.

US Indo-Pacific Command chief Adm. Samuel Paparo, who heads the biggest number of combat forces outside the US mainland, refused to provide details of the contingency options.

According to The AP, Paparo's comments came when asked at a news conference what the longtime treaty allies could do to deal with China’s so-called gray-zone tactics in the disputed waters.

The “gray-zone tactics” refer to types of assault, like water cannon fire and the blocking and ramming of rival ships in the disputed waters, that are under the threshold of an actual armed attack and wouldn't allow the Philippines to invoke its 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty with the US The treaty obligates either country to help the other in case of an armed external attack.

"We certainly have prepared a range of options and USINDOPACOM stands ready, if so called, after consultations in accordance with the treaty to execute those shoulder to shoulder with our ally,” Paparo said.

Detailing those US military options would allow “the potential adversary” to “build a countermeasure to those,” he said.

Paparo held a joint news conference with Armed Forces of the Philippines chief Gen. Romero Brawner Jr., after both led an annual meeting in the northern Philippine mountain city of Baguio to discuss security challenges and military plans. They include the Balikatan — Tagalog for shoulder to shoulder — the treaty allies’ largest combat exercises, which in April involved more than 16,000 American and Filipinos forces and were partly staged in the South China Sea.

In response to a question, Paparo repeated that the US military is open, after treaty consultations with the Philippines, to escorting Philippine ships in the South China Sea amid a spike in hostilities between Beijing and Manila in the disputed waters. Such a prospect would risk putting US Navy ships in direct collisions with those of China.

Washington and Beijing have been on a collision course over China’s increasingly assertive actions to defend its territorial claims in the South China Sea, and Beijing’s stated goal of annexing Taiwan, by force if necessary.

Brawner said the Philippines could still fend for itself in the disputed waters, where hostilities with the Chinese coast guard, navy and suspected militia ships have alarmingly spiked since last year.

“If we exhaust all the options and nothing works, then that’s the time we can ask for help,” Brawner told reporters.

When Filipino forces in the disputed waters “are at the verge of dying,” because food supplies were being blocked by Chinese forces, “then that’s the time that we are going to seek the help of the United States,” Brawner said, but added that “we still have a lot of options."

During combat exercises by US and Philippine forces in April, the US military transported a mid-range missile system to the northern Philippines, angering China, which warned that the missile system can trigger a regional arms race and endanger regional stability. Beijing demanded that the US missile system, which can threaten mainland China, be pulled out of the Philippines.

Paparo and Brawner refused to say on Thursday if and when the missile system would be flown out of the Philippines. Brawner thanked the US military for transporting the high-tech weaponry to the country, saying Filipino forces were being exposed to advance defense equipment that the Philippine military plan to acquire in the future.

"Just like what we did with the Stingers and with the Javelins, we start training already even if we don’t have them yet in our inventory,” Brawner said.