
The CIA provided intelligence to Austrian authorities that helped stop an attack on a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna earlier this month, The New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing the agency’s deputy director.
Speaking at the annual Intelligence Summit just outside Washington, D.C., David S. Cohen revealed that the agency had tipped off Austria about four individuals linked to the Islamic State, known as IS or ISIS, who were planning an attack.
“They were plotting to kill a huge number, tens of thousands of people at this concert, I am sure many Americans,” Cohen stated. “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.”
A series of three concerts by American pop sensation Taylor Swift at Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadium was cancelled on August 8 after Austrian security authorities detained three suspects in connection with an alleged terrorist plot.
Cohen did not disclose how the CIA had become aware of the planned attack.
In her first public remarks since the cancellations, Swift posted on Instagram last week, saying that she felt a “tremendous amount of guilt because so many people had planned on coming.”
She extended her gratitude to the authorities, adding: “Because thanks to them, we were grieving concerts and not lives.”