The details emerging of the alleged terror plot aimed at Taylor Swift\u2019s three Vienna concerts are scant, but already adhere to a chilling pattern familiar to European counterterrorism officials. <\/p>\n
Austrian police said Wednesday that a 19-year-old man was arrested in Ternitz, about an hour\u2019s drive from where Swift was scheduled to perform Thursday, Friday and Saturday for an expected 65,000 fans each night at the Ernst Happel Stadium. <\/p>\n
\u201cChemical substances\u201d possibly linked to bomb-making were discovered in a search of the Austrian citizen\u2019s home, police said, declaring that \u201cspecific preparatory measures have been undertaken\u201d to target Swift\u2019s concerts. <\/p>\n
The search of the area around the home led to 60 households being evacuated, local media reported, with police adding it continued into the evening. <\/p>\n
A second suspect was arrested in Vienna that afternoon. Police did not give their age or gender, citing an ongoing investigation that appeared to be widening in scope. \u201cFurther detentions have also been carried out,\u201d police said. <\/p>\n
Both suspects had been radicalized online, police said, adding the 19-year-old had sworn allegiance to ISIS\u2019 new leader last month. <\/p>\n
Police also alluded to the role of social media in both the radicalization of the suspects and alleged planning of the attacks. <\/p>\n
\u201cCommunication of the perpetrators is undertaken usually in an encrypted form,\u201d often masking their conversations from routine counter-terror surveillance, General Director for Public Security Franz Ruf told reporters. <\/p>\n
Neumann noted the latest Europol data showed \u201cthe number of attacks and planned attacks has more than quadrupled\u201d since 2022. <\/p>\n
Among the cases Neumann referenced was another in Austria, in which a 14-year-old girl from Montenegro was arrested in May in the southern city of Graz after buying a knife and axe for an attack she was allegedly plotting. ISIS material was also found on her computer. <\/p>\n
Teenagers were also arrested during France\u2019s security sweep ahead of the Paris Olympics. <\/p>\n
In late May, an 18-year-old man of Chechen origin was indicted for \u201cterrorist criminal association,\u201d for alleged plans to target spectators in the city of Saint-\u00c9tienne during the Games, according to a statement from French anti-terror prosecutors. <\/p>\n
About a fortnight earlier, two teenagers were arrested in northeast and southern France for plotting a terror attack, the target unclear, the statement said. <\/p>\n
And in April, a 16-year-old from the Haute-Savoie department in southeastern France was arrested for allegedly researching how to make an explosives belt and die as an ISIS martyr, possibly targeting the Olympics, the statement added. <\/p>\n
German police have also publicized two alleged terror plots involving teenagers in recent months. <\/p>\n
In April, officials in the western city of Dusseldorf said they arrested two girls, aged 15 and 16, and a 15-year-old boy accused of planning a terror attack. <\/p>\n
Another alleged plot involving a possible knife attack on a Heidelberg synagogue, which was disrupted in May, involved an 18-year-old man, a German prosecutor\u2019s statement said. <\/p>\n
Meanwhile in Switzerland, police in March arrested a 15-year-old Swiss boy and a 16-year-old Italian boy for alleged ISIS support and plotting bomb attacks, according to a police statement. <\/p>\n
Neumann, the terrorism expert, said teenagers were often recruited online, where ISIS and its Central Asian affiliate ISIS-K only needed to see success in a handful from hundreds of potential recruits. <\/p>\n
\u201cGroups like (ISIS-K are) specifically targeting young teenagers,\u201d Neumann said. \u201cThey may not be very useful. They may mess up. They may change their mind,\u201d he said, but they are \u201cnot least less suspicious. Who would think of a 13-year-old as a terrorist? One is enough.\u201d <\/p>\n
Teenagers were being recruited through social media platforms like TikTok, dragged through algorithms into \u201cbubbles\u201d online where jihadist recruiters can reach them, Neumann said. <\/p>\n
ISIS-K was \u201cby far the most ambitious and aggressive part of ISIS right now,\u201d plotting complex attacks and recruiting online, he added. <\/p>\n
While details of the alleged plans to attack Swift\u2019s concerts remain unclear, European security sources have been increasingly concerned that terror plots are becoming more \u201cdirected\u201d \u2013 or organized by a more experienced or resourced recruiter from afar. <\/p>\n
European counter-terror officials are also struggling with a fast-morphing terror threat emerging from parts of the former Soviet Union, including Russia\u2019s North Caucasus region and Central Asian states like Tajikistan. <\/p>\n
Last month, Austrian counter-terror police said they had detained eight men and a woman for fundraising for ISIS. Laptops, cash, fake passports and a vehicle were confiscated, and authorities said the suspects, originally from Chechnya in the Russian Federation, might have their Austrian residence permits revoked. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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