Security has been increased for Taylor Swift’s concerts in Vienna, Austria, this week after two suspects were arrested for planning a terror attack, authorities said.
A 19-year-old Austrian national was arrested on Wednesday morning and a second suspect was arrested in the afternoon, according to Franz Ruf, director general of public security at the interior ministry.
The suspects allegedly radicalized themselves online, Ruf said at a press conference. The 19-year-old suspect reportedly pledged allegiance to the Islamic State leader in early July, Ruf said.
Vienna was a target of their planned attack and the 19-year-old suspect had a particular focus on Swift’s Vienna concert, Ruf said.
Taylor Swift performs on stage during the ‘Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour’, July 27, 2024, in Munich, Germany.
Thomas Niedermueller/TAS24/Getty Images
The pop star has concerts in Vienna this Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The shows are expected to draw 65,000 concertgoers per day, with another 10,000 to 15,000 fans from outside the area, police said.
Swift kicked off the hugely successful ‘Eras Tour’ in Glendale, Arizona, on March 18, 2023.
In October 2023, the pop star released a concert film chronicle the record-breaking tour, “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour”, which went on to break records of its own and earn a Golden Globe nomination.
At the tour’s 100th stop this summer in Liverpool, England, the 14-time Grammy winner told the crowd that the tour “has definitely been the most exhausting, all-consuming, but most joyful, most rewarding, most wonderful thing that’s ever happened in my life so far.”
The “Eras Tour” concludes in Vancouver, Canada on December 8.
ABC News’ Carson Blackwelder contributed to this report.