CIA Deputy Director David S. Cohen said Wednesday that information the Central Intelligence Agency provided to Austrian authorities helped prevent the ISIS attack at a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna that would have killed thousands of people.
“The Austrians were able to make those arrests because the agency and our partners in the intelligence community provided them with information about what this ISIS-connected group was planning to do,” Cohen said at the annual Intelligence Summit held Wednesday in the U.S. capital.
The sold out ‘The Eras Tour’ concerts in Vienna, which were set to host some 170,000 people between August 8 and 10, were canceled following the arrest of two suspected terrorists who were planning to attack during the show.
Several other people were subsequently arrested.
“They were planning to kill a large number, tens of thousands of people at this concert, I’m sure a lot of Americans,” Cohen said, without elaborating.
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Swift reaction to terror incident
Cohen detailed that the CIA had provided information on four people linked to the Islamic State who were planning an attack.
Some of the people arrested were found to have bomb-making materials and had access to the concert venue.
The American singer did not refer to what happened until last week, when she posted a message through social media.
“Let me be very clear: I will not talk about something publicly if I believe that doing so could provoke those who would want to harm the fans who come to my concerts,” she said.
The star also said that after the cancellation of her three concerts in Vienna, she felt “fear” and a “tremendous guilt” for the number of people who had planned to go to see her at the Ernst Happel stadium in the Austrian capital.
Swift said she was grateful to the authorities of the European country “because thanks to them we were mourning for concerts and not for lives” and said that despite the situation she was encouraged by “the love and unity” she saw from her fans.
