A third suspect has been arrested in connection with a foiled terror attack on Taylor Swift’s now-cancelled concerts in Vienna, the Austrian interior minister has said.
The 18-year-old Iraqi man is understood to have been an associate of the main 19-year-old suspect, identified as Beran A, an Austrian with North Macedonian roots.
Gerhard Karner, the interior minister, announced the most recent arrest at a press conference in the Austrian capital on Friday.
Authorities say they believe the plot was inspired by the Islamic State group and al-Qaida. Bomb-making materials including chemical substances and technical devices that indicated “concrete preparatory acts” in the “advanced stages” were found during a raid of the main suspect’s home in Ternitz, south of Vienna, investigators said.
According to police, one of the suspects has confessed to planning to “kill as many people as possible outside the concert venue”.
About 20,000 to 35,000 non-ticket holders were expected to gather outside the Ernst Happel stadium for each of the three concerts, according to authorities. Up to 65,000 were due to attend inside.
The three sold-out concerts, part of Swift’s blockbuster Eras tour, were cancelled on Wednesday after details emerged of the plot, which was due to be executed on Thursday or Friday, authorities said.
The decision left tens of thousands of fans, many of whom had travelled to Austria from around the world, devastated.
Impromptu gatherings of fans, known as Swifties, across the city singing Swift’s songs and swapping homemade bracelets have provided consolation for many. Fans have been promised a refund of the ticket price but not the hotel or travel costs connected to their trips, which in many cases have run into thousands of euros.
Authorities defended the decision to cancel the concerts, despite the arrests of the terror suspects. Karl Nehammer, Austria’s chancellor, said the arrests had taken place too close to the scheduled concerts to allow them to go ahead.
Nehammer addressed the disappointed fans directly on Thursday. “I understand very well that those who wanted to experience the concert live are very sad,” he said. “Mums and dads are caring for their daughters and sons, who had been full of enthusiasm and excitement about this concert. But it’s also important that in such serious moments like now, safety inevitably has to come first.”
The Guardian spoke to fans who expressed their understanding of the decision.
Swift is due to perform at Wembley in London over five consecutive nights next week, with the last on 20 August, bringing the European leg of her tour to a close.
Many fans due to attend the concerts in Vienna are now scrambling to get tickets for London. The face-value price of those tickets has reportedly soared by almost 2,000% on the resale market. Appeals have gone out within the Swift fan community urging those with spare tickets to pass them on to those who have been disappointed.
London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, has said the concerts will go ahead despite the safety concerns of many fans. “We’re going to carry on,” he said on Thursday.
Khan said authorities had adapted their surveillance of shows in London based in part on what they had learned from the 2017 attack at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, in which 22 people were killed and many injured.
A bomb carried in a rucksack by a suicide bomber detonated at the close of the concert at the Manchester Arena as thousands of mainly young fans were departing.
Less than two weeks ago three girls were killed and 10 people injured as they attended a Swift-themed dance and yoga workshop in the UK town of Southport. Swift said at the time she was “completely in shock” over the attack.
There has so far been no response from the singer over the Austria terror plot.
The main suspect told authorities he had begun planning the attack last month, uploading to the internet an oath of allegiance to the current head of IS two days before the planned attack. Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, the head of Austria’s directorate of state security and intelligence, said the 19-year-old had “clearly been radicalised in the direction of the Islamic State and considers it right to kill infidels”.
He had intended to “carry out an attack in the area outside the stadium, killing as many people as possible” by driving a car into the crowds before using knives, machetes and the homemade explosive devices, Haijawi-Pirchner said.
He had recently given up his job at a steelworks factory, telling colleagues he “still had big plans”.
Authorities said he had not resisted when anti-terrorist police came to arrest him at the family home on Wednesday. His parents were on holiday, according to Austrian media.
The second suspect, a 17-year-old Austrian of Turkish-Croatian heritage, has so far refused to talk. But authorities said they had found materials relating to IS and al-Qaida at his home. The teenager had been employed by a facility management company that was providing services of an unspecified nature at the concerts venue. He had recently broken up with his girlfriend, Haijawi-Pirchner said.
The first two suspects are being held at a penal institution in the industrial town of Wiener Neustadt, 30 miles (50km) south of Vienna, with state prosecutors having applied for the teenagers to be held in custody.
Another suspect, a 15-year-old Austrian boy of Turkish origin, is being questioned by police. The extent to which the suspects were part of a network, and if so how big it was, has not been made public.
It is understood the tipoff for the attack came from US intelligence services who informed their Austrian counterparts.