Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at a foiled terror attack plot against a Taylor Swift concert in Austria, Ukraine’s incursion into Russia, and warnings of a megaquake in Japan.
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at a foiled terror attack plot against a Taylor Swift concert in Austria, Ukraine’s incursion into Russia, and warnings of a megaquake in Japan.
Sign up to receive World Brief in your inbox every weekday.
Sign up to receive World Brief in your inbox every weekday.
✓ Signed Up Unsubscribe
By submitting your email, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use and to receive email correspondence from us. You may opt out at any time.
Thwarted Attack
Taylor Swift on Wednesday canceled the three concerts scheduled for her Eras Tour stop in Vienna after Austrian authorities thwarted a terrorist plot designed to kill “as many people as possible” at large gatherings, including her shows. A total of 250,000 fans were expected to attend Swift’s performances at the city’s Ernst Happel Stadium on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, marking the pop star’s penultimate European stop in what has become the highest-grossing concert tour of all time.
Security officials said three Austrian citizens—ages 19, 17, and 15—are being questioned in connection with the plot. According to Vienna State Police Director Franz Ruf, the 19-year-old and suspected ringleader had pledged “an oath of allegiance” to the Islamic State. He was arrested on Wednesday in the Austrian town of Ternitz, where he lived with his parents. In his home, authorities found explosive devices and detonators as well as extensive Islamic State propaganda material, 21,000 counterfeit euros, machetes, and knives. Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, the head of Austria’s Directorate of State Security and Intelligence, said police believe that the suspect planned to “kill himself and a large number of people during the concert.”
Materials related to the Islamic State and al Qaeda were also found in the possession of the 17-year-old, who was arrested on Wednesday near the stadium. The suspect had begun working just a few days earlier for a company that was set to provide event services for Swift’s Vienna concerts. Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said the suspects were “radicalized by the internet.”
“The danger from Islamist extremism in Europe has increased significantly following the terrible terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel,” Karner added, referring to the Oct. 7, 2023, attack carried out by Hamas that killed around 1,200 Israelis, including around 370 people attending the Nova Music Festival in the Negev Desert. Vienna Police Chief Gerhard Purstl said that although the immediate danger in his city had been “minimized,” an “abstract danger” remained.
Concerts and other large public gatherings have become vulnerable soft targets for terrorism networks and spree killers. In November 2015, Islamic State gunmen launched an assault on several targets across Paris, including the city’s Bataclan theater, killing around 130 people in total. An Islamic State-claimed suicide bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, in May 2017 killed at least 22 people; just four months later, a lone shooter killed at least 60 people at a Las Vegas music festival. Police have never identified a motive in the Las Vegas mass shooting.
“After the Manchester Arena bombing and the Vegas concert shooting, I was completely terrified to go on tour this time because I didn’t know how we were going to keep 3 million fans safe over seven months,” Swift wrote in a 2019 essay for Elle magazine, referring to her scheduled 2020 Lover Fest tour. Those performances were ultimately canceled due to COVID-19.
This year, the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a terrorist attack on Moscow’s Crocus City Hall in March that killed at least 137 people. And in May, French officials said they had arrested a man who planned on targeting the 2024 Paris Olympics in the name of the extremist organization.
Canceling the tour’s Vienna stops could also come at a significant cost to Austrian businesses. Swift’s popular performances have single-handedly boosted the economies of many of the countries that she has visited in a phenomenon that economists have coined “Swiftonomics.” Her shows in London made around $380 million for the city, her visit to Tokyo pulled roughly $228 million into the Japanese economy, and her performances in Mexico City generated more than $59 million.
Today’s Most Read
- The Two Biggest Global Trends Are at War by Stephen M. Walt
- Harris and Walz Can Remake U.S. Foreign Policy by Mark Hannah and Rachel Rizzo
- How Walz Completes the Harris Ticket by Julian E. Zelizer
What We’re Following
Rare incursion. Ukraine claimed responsibility on Thursday for its three-day attack on Russia’s Kursk region. The surprise cross-border operation began on Tuesday in what military experts believe may be an effort by Kyiv to relieve its embattled forces on the front lines by diverting Moscow’s attention elsewhere. “War is war, with its own rules, where the aggressor inevitably reaps corresponding outcomes,” said Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
This week’s attack is the largest Ukrainian military incursion into Russian territory since the war began in February 2022, and it is one of the only confirmed times that the Ukrainian military has been directly involved in a cross-border operation during the war. The Russian Defense Ministry said on Thursday that its forces are repelling Kyiv’s attack, but other officials and independent analysts have said the fighting remains ongoing.
The Kremlin has since declared a state of emergency for the region, and thousands of residents have evacuated, according to Kursk’s acting governor. Local authorities report dozens of civilian casualties, though Foreign Policy was unable to independently verify these numbers.
Megaquake alert. A 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck off of Japan’s southern coast on Thursday, prompting seismologists to issue their first-ever warning of a possible megaquake around the Nankai Trough, located south of Japan’s main Honshu Island. The alert will be in place for a week, though that does not mean such a quake will occur in that time frame. Officials told residents to remain wary even after the warning expires.
There is a 70 percent to 80 percent chance of a magnitude 8 or 9 quake striking from the Nankai Trough within the next 30 years, seismologist Naoshi Hirata said. Hirata was part of an expert panel that worked with the Japan Meteorological Agency to assess the situation.
Thursday’s earthquake caused some minor injuries on Kyushu, Japan’s southernmost major island. Authorities initially issued a tsunami advisory that was later lifted. The country’s location on the so-called Ring of Fire has made Japan prone to major seismic events in the past, including an earthquake in the northern region of Noto on Jan. 1 that killed more than 240 people.
On the run. Police are searching for Carles Puigdemont, a Catalan separatist leader in self-imposed exile, after he defied an arrest warrant by returning to Barcelona on Thursday. He appeared before a large crowd at Barcelona’s Arc de Triomf for a surprise cloak-and-dagger speech. “We have been persecuted for seven years for wanting to hear the voice of the people of Catalonia. … Long live free Catalonia,” Puigdemont said before fleeing through an adjacent tent. Local authorities arrested two police officers for allegedly aiding his escape.
Puigdemont fled to Belgium in 2017 after his unauthorized independence referendum failed, sparking one of the country’s biggest political crises since the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975. At the time of the referendum, Puigdemont was the president of the Catalan government. He faces charges of embezzlement for his involvement in the separatist bid.
Odds and Ends
Small-town Italian Mayor Luciano Fregonese may not qualify for the Olympic race-walking competition, but he is sure drawing crowds. Every Thursday, Fregonese takes a stroll around Valdobbiadene, a town famous for its prosecco, in an effort to stay in shape amid his full events schedule. “Every weekend, there is one or two or three or maybe more events to attend to, and [at] every event, it is common to drink wine, or prosecco, and also to eat,” the mayor said. What started as a joke to get healthy has quickly evolved into an all-town excursion, sometimes with hundreds of people joining in. One of their last hikes took them through the Prosecco Hills—where pizza was waiting for the walkers as a reward.
