The man arrested and charged in Austria for having planned an attack at a concert of the singer Taylor Swift had agreed with two other jihadist accomplices to carry out simultaneous terrorist attacks in three countries in March 2024, of which one took place in Mecca (Saudi Arabia). This was reported this Sunday by the newspaper ‘Kronen Zeitung’, which cites passages from a written interrogation of the accused, Beran A., 19, with roots in North Macedonia and a sympathizer of the terrorist group. Islamic State (NO).
Together with two other friends who, like him, live in eastern Austria and with whom a year ago he published an oath of loyalty to ISIS on the ‘Snapchat’ messaging application, they would have hatched plans to attack the March 11 last, at the beginning of Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month, simultaneous attacks in three different places. According to the newspaper, Beran A. then flew to Dubai with the intention of stab a soldier in front of a mosque and then “shoot people in the area” with a pistol, but at the last minute he gave up the attack for fear of “dying under a hail of police bullets and having to suffer first.”
On the other hand, one of his two co-religionists yes he carried out an attack at the agreed time in the Saudi city of Mecca, where he allegedly stabbed and seriously injured a security guard outside the mosque Al-Haramand attacked four other people before being subdued and arrested by police. The Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed the case this Sunday afternoon to the Austrian agency APA, noting that the 20-year-old man is detained in Saudi Arabia and is receiving consular assistance.
The third accomplice
With respect to the third alleged accomplice, who would be transferred to Istanbul to carry out his part of the plan there, the authorities have not yet been able to establish his identity with certainty, indicates the ‘Kronen Zeitung’. Austrian investigators believe it is possible that he is free since so far they do not know that a terrorist act was committed in Istanbul on March 11.
The Vienna Prosecutor’s Office confirmed today to APA that it has now expanded its investigation against Beran A, the main suspect for a frustrated attack against a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna. Shortly after being arrested on August 7, 2024, Beran A. confessed his intention to carry out a suicide attack in front of the stadium Ernst Happel de Vienna coinciding with one of the three concerts of the popular American singer scheduled there from August 8 to 10.
The objective was “to kill himself and a large crowd at the concert,” Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner reported then, assuring that the suspect was very advanced in manufacturing the explosive. All three concerts were canceled as a precaution.
