The suspects in the foiled plot to attack Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna earlier this month sought to kill “tens of thousands” of fans before the CIA discovered intelligence that disrupted the planning and led to arrests, the agency’s deputy director said.

The CIA notified Austrian authorities of the scheme, which allegedly included links to the Islamic State group. The intelligence and subsequent arrests ultimately led to the cancellation of three sold-out Eras Tour showsdevastating fans who had traveled across the globe to see Swift in concert.

    • foggy@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      No one recalls because of it’s utter failure, but allow me remind how you all how novice some terror plots are. This is from memory.

      In 2007 during the Wimbledon Tennis Tournament, a few men rented a two cars, placed kegs of gasoline in the trunks next to boxes of nails. They were rigged with a cell phone as a detonator.

      Car 1 was parked so poorly it was towed to an underground lot. No service. No “kaboom” (really it’d be a brief fireball and some warm nails, destroyed car…)

      Car 2, seeing how poorly car 1 went, decided they would kamikaze into… The entrance(?) of Glasgow airport?

      Except they detonated way too soon. Basically just lit the car they were driving on fire near an airport.

      Iirc they were burned, and then arrested. Would have invited more terror by punching random babies.

      Edit: there were 3 cars. 2 cars parked poorly. 1 towed. The other, an ambulance noticed smoke coming out of it, so they notified authorities who discovered the bomb and subsequently diffused it. The smoke was presumably from faulty wiring with the detonator.

    • ikidd@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      It was some teenager with a half-assed plan and delusions of grandeur. This “tens of thousands” shit is kind of an embarassing thing to proport, like they need to pump up having foiled a “major” terrorist organization or something.

        • whereisk@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          How else do you convince bureaucrats and purse string holders that you are vital and need a bigger budget for next year?

        • smokebuddy [he/him]@lemmy.today
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          2 months ago

          also possibly to amend the laws to allow the surveillance of own citizens’ text messages which is currently illegal for police to do there

    • treadful@lemmy.zip
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      2 months ago

      Investigators discovered chemical substances and technical devices during a raid of the suspect’s home.

      Could mean literally anything, though.

    • Jimmycakes@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      They were gonna pass the knife to a fan and say stab yourself or double it and pass it on so the final fan would have to stab everyone as there was no one left to pass it on

    • Ellia Plissken@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      and like, they couldn’t attack more than one at a time, did they think authorities wouldn’t notice?

      • can@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        It’s almost as if the type of person to do such thing may not be working with a sound, reasonable mind.