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Austria files charges against suspect over planned 2024 Taylor Swift terror attack

Austrian prosecutors have filed terrorism-related and other charges against a now 21-year-old Austrian suspect arrested shortly before a 2024 Taylor Swift concert in Vienna, who they said planned to carry out an Islamic State (ISIS)-inspired attack.

The Vienna prosecutors’ office plans to bring a criminal case against the unnamed suspect in Wiener Neustadt, a town near Vienna, accusing him of producing a small amount of the explosive triacetone triperoxide and attempting to purchase weapons illegally, it said in a statement on Monday.

The statement referred to the suspect’s arrest in August 2024, the same month as three planned Swift concerts were canceled at short notice after Austrian authorities said they had foiled an attack.

The statement from the prosecutors’ office did not name the suspect, but he was identified by Austrian media as Beran A and is the only one to have been arrested in connection with the planned attack. Beran A’s lawyer was not immediately available for comment, but has previously disputed accusations made against his client.

In June 2025, German authorities charged a Syrian juvenile listed as Mohammad A for helping plan the attack by translating Arabic bomb-building instructions and putting Beran A in contact with a member of the ISIS terror group online, according to the charges against him. He avoided prison under juvenile criminal law. 

Suspect spread ISIS propaganda online

The prosecutors’ statement said that Beran A was a member of the Islamic State and that he is accused of carrying out online research into a type of shrapnel bomb used by that group, and of spreading Islamic State “propaganda material” online.

If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison, the statement added.

Incident Details

Type of Incident: Info
Date of Incident: February 17, 2026
City: Vienna
Country: Austria

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About Sentinel

SENTINEL is a European project funded by the European Commission and led by the Security and Crisis Centre (SACC by EJC), the security arm of the European Jewish Congress. It brings together the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT), national-level Jewish communities from Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, and Spain, the European Union of Jewish Students, with the support of the Italian Carabinieri and the Police Presidium of the Czech Republic.

The project is designed to strengthen the protection of Jewish places of worship across the European Union through a coordinated set of activities over a three-year period.

SENTINEL will harness AI-enhanced open-source intelligence to monitor and assess current, emerging, and future threats. It will also equip Jewish communities with practical tools, including a mobile security application with a panic button and an interactive map built on real-time incident data.

Training and capacity-building are at the core of the project. These include scenario-based security exercises, crisis management seminars, and both in-person and online training sessions for community security trustees. SENTINEL will also organise EU-wide and local conferences to foster collaboration between Jewish communities, public authorities, and law enforcement agencies.

Complementing these efforts, national and local workshops will promote knowledge-sharing and preparedness, alongside pilot training programmes for law enforcement. A dedicated podcast series will help raise awareness by exploring threat assessments and potential responses.

With its wide-reaching and inclusive approach, SENTINEL will directly benefit to Jewish communities across 23 EU Member States, enhancing resilience, strengthening preparedness, and building long-term cooperation with law enforcement to meet today’s evolving security challenges.