Vienna, Aug 7 (EFE).- United States singer Taylor Swift canceled her three upcoming concerts at Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadium after Austrian police arrested two suspected terrorists who planned to attack the event, tour organizers said in a statement.
Swift was scheduled to perform on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday as part of the European leg of The Eras Tour.
“With confirmation from government officials of a planned terrorist attack at Ernst Happel stadium, we have no choice but to cancel the three scheduled shows for everyone’s safety,” Barracuda Music, one of the organizers of the event in the city, posted on Instagram in English and German.
Swift’s website added a note next to the Vienna dates that read, “*All tickets will be automatically refunded within the next 10 business days.”
The cancellation comes after a counterterrorism operation early Wednesday resulted in the arrest of a 19-year-old Austrian man in the town of Ternitz, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) southwest of Vienna, and a second suspect in the capital.
Authorities reported that the young man in Ternitz had been radicalized and pledged allegiance to the current leader of the Islamic State, but did not provide further details about the second detainee in the Austrian capital.
The investigation is still ongoing and other suspects are apparently being sought, the Austrian news agency APA reported.
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer called the cancellation a “bitter disappointment for all fans in Austria,” but said in a social media post that “the situation surrounding the apparently planned terrorist attack in Vienna was very serious.”
“We live in a time when violent means are used to attack our Western way of life. Islamist terrorism threatens the security and freedom of many Western countries. That is why we will not give up our values of freedom and democracy but will defend them even more vehemently,” the Christian Democrat politician added.
“A specific threat has been averted. The alleged perpetrator was focused on the Taylor Swift concerts. Preparations were discovered,” Austria’s director general for public security, Franz Ruf, said at a press conference.
The head of Vienna’s state police, Gerhard Pürstl, stressed at the same conference that the police were still on alert for terrorist threats and announced the deployment of a special operation to ensure the security of the event, which had not been canceled at the time of the conference.
The three Vienna shows of the “Eras Tour” were sold out, with approximately 170,000 people expected to attend.
In November 2020, Vienna was the target of a terrorist attack that left four people dead.
Last December, authorities arrested four suspects suspected of planning an attack on St. Stephen’s Cathedral in the city center. EFE
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