CIA Says Terrorists Targeting Taylor Swift Shows Plotted To Kill ‘Tens Of Thousands Of People’

The agency’s deputy director, David S. Cohen, shared his assessment at the annual Intelligence Summit outside Washington, D.C.

Three weeks after four suspected terrorists connected to the Islamic State were detained in Vienna ahead of an alleged plot targeting Taylor Swift’s sold-out shows there, the CIA is confirming they provided Austrian authorities with the requisite intelligence to foil it.

“They were plotting to kill a huge number, tens of thousands of people at this concert, I am sure many Americans,” CIA deputy director David S. Cohen said Wednesday at the annual Intelligence Summit outside Washington, D.C., The New York Times reported.

“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,” the deputy director, who has held the position since 2021, continued.

The terrorist threat led concert organizer Barracuda Music to cancel all three of Swift’s Eras Tour dates at the Ernst Happel Stadium in Vienna, which would have kicked off on Aug. 8, because the arrests made in connection to the foiled plot were too close to showtime.

Austrian police arrested the first two suspects — a 17-year-old Austrian citizen who had al-Qaida material in his home and a 19-year-old who reportedly planned to kill fans outside the venue “using explosives and knives” — two days before the first scheduled show.