The CIA and other US intelligence agencies provided intelligence to Austrian law enforcement that allowed them to disrupt an ISIS-inspired plot to attack a Taylor Swift concert earlier this month, CIA deputy director David Cohen confirmed on Wednesday.
CNN and others had previously reported the role of US intelligence in disrupting the plot, which Cohen said was “quite advanced” and threatened to kill “tens of thousands of people at this concert, including I am sure many Americans.”
“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,” Cohen said.
“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 in Virginia. “And not just the Swifties in my workforce.”
Swift just completed a run of shows at London’s Wembley Stadium and the European leg of her tour. On August 7, Austrian authorities announced they had foiled a terror attack planned for at least one of the Vienna dates.
Three teenagers have been detained in connection with the investigation and are suspected of plotting a suicide attack.
Investigators found a stockpile of chemicals, explosive devices, detonators and €21,000 (about $22,944) in counterfeit cash at the home of the main suspect, a 19-year-old ISIS sympathizer who had been radicalized online, authorities said.
“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. But I was also so grateful to the authorities because thanks to them, we were grieving concerts and not lives,” Swift said in a statement earlier this month.
