What foiled Taylor Swift concert attack plot says about Daesh threat to Europe

Special What foiled Taylor Swift concert attack plot says about Daesh threat to Europe
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Police in Ternitz have arrested a 19-year-old Austrian man of Macedonian descent, right, thought to be the mastermind behind a plot to attack fans of US superstar Taylor Swift, bottom left, at the Ernst Happel Stadium in Vienna, top left, in echoes of earlier attacks on European concert venues, below. Despite its territorial defeat in Iraq and Syria, Daesh continues to pose a security threat. (AFP)
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Updated 19 August 2024
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What foiled Taylor Swift concert attack plot says about Daesh threat to Europe

What foiled Taylor Swift concert attack plot says about Daesh threat to Europe
  • Three young men were arrested by Austrian police on Aug. 7 for allegedly planning to target event in Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadium
  • The plot, which echoed earlier attacks on European concert venues, showed the allure Daesh still holds for alienated youths

ATHENS: Taylor Swift fans were left disappointed earlier this month by news that the American pop star’s long-awaited tour dates in the Austrian capital, Vienna, were to be canceled owing to a terrorist threat to the concert venue by Daesh sympathizers.

On Aug. 7, Austrian authorities arrested three youths, aged 19, 17 and 15, who they claimed were involved in, or had knowledge of, a terrorist plot to attack the Ernst Happel Stadium where Swift was due to perform over the Aug. 8-10 period.




A closer view of the Austrian man of Macedonian descent, identified only as Beran A., who was arrested by Austrian police for allegedly plotting a terror attack on a stadium where American singer Taylor Swift was to hold a concert last week. (Social media photo 

After searching the home of the 19-year-old suspect, an Austrian national with North Macedonian heritage, police found an array of edged weapons and bomb-making materials, counterfeit cash and Daesh propaganda.

Although the suspects had been taken into police custody, Swift’s promoter Barracuda Music decided to cancel the superstar’s three-date run of her Eras Tour, which was expected to attract 65,000 fans inside the stadium at each concert and 30,000 onlookers outside.




Merchandising booths for items related to US mega-star Taylor Swift are closed next to the Ernst-Happel Stadium in Vienna, Austrian, on August 8, 2024, after her three concerts were cancelled following after the arrest of a Daesh sympathiser in connection with an attack plot. (AFP)

The decision was deemed prudent, especially given Daesh’s track record of attacking European concert venues. The group killed 90 at the Bataclan theater in Paris, France, in 2015. Two years later, a Daesh suicide bomber killed 22 at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England.

Most recently, in March of this year, a massive, coordinated attack on Moscow’s Crocus City Hall by Daesh’s Central Asian branch, Islamic State in Khorasan, or IS-K, killed 145 people and injured more than 500.

What is surprising about the Vienna plot, however, is Daesh’s ability to continue recruiting followers in Western nations — long after its territorial defeat in Iraq and Syria in 2019 and despite international efforts to smash its leadership, financing networks and online presence.

“I’m not so surprised that there are still young people who join Daesh and want to do something in Europe,” Thomas Schmidinger, a Vienna-based political scientist and expert in extremism and deradicalization, told Arab News.

“I think the failure of Daesh as a state project in Iraq and Syria may have even increased the danger of terrorist attacks in Europe, because, in 2014 and 2015, people were going to Syria to join Daesh there. Now there is no more existing state project, but the organization continues to exist. The reasons why young people were attracted by this ideology are still here.”




An image grab taken from a propaganda video released on March 17, 2014 by the Daesh's al-Furqan Media shows the group's fighters driving on a street in the northern Syrian City of Homs. (AFP)

Schmidinger, however, believes it may have been a mistake to cancel Swift’s Vienna tour dates as doing so might encourage Daesh to threaten other such events in the future.

“The way the organizers of the concert reacted was actually a victory for the terrorists, because the Austrian police did catch the possible perpetrators and there was no reason to cancel the event,” he said. “This cancelation is now at least a propaganda victory for Daesh.”

Although authorities are desperate to avoid a repeat of the attacks in Paris, Manchester and Moscow, analysts say coordinated attacks of this scale are likely to be rare. Indeed, the majority of Daesh-inspired activities in the West, particularly in recent years, can be attributed to self-radicalized individuals acting of their own accord.




This handout photograph taken and released by Russian Emergency Ministry on March 23, 2024 shows 
rescuers working inside the Crocus City Hall, a day after a gun attack in Krasnogorsk, outside Moscow. (Handout via AFP/File)

“You can tell the difference between someone who was inspired by Daesh, or just said they were Daesh, versus the ones who actually were Daesh,” Mia Bloom, professor of communication and Middle East studies at Georgia State University, told Arab News.

“There are degrees to which people claim Daesh affiliation and loyalty. They make this baya, or pledge of allegiance, to Daesh, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that Daesh has accepted it.

“For example, you can have people who are radicalized online who engage in a violent attack and they say they were inspired by watching beheading videos or propaganda that they’ve consumed.

“That’s very different from what we saw at the Bataclan in France, or in Charlie Hebdo, or in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where the perpetrators were trained in a Daesh camp. Daesh funded it, and Daesh live-streamed it on GoPro cameras.”




Rescuers carry a survivor of the Paris terrorist attack on the Bataclan theater on November 13, 2016. (Corbis via Getty Images/File)

Europe is not alone in facing an ongoing threat from Daesh. Although attacks in the US have been less common, the perpetrators of the 2015 shooting in San Bernardino, California, which left 16 dead, had pledged allegiance to Daesh on Facebook. A year later, a shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, claimed 49 lives.

However, there was no evidence that Daesh planned either attack.

“Daesh put out infographics on their successes from around 2014 to 2019,” said Bloom. “They put out a map of the US showing the attacks for which they were responsible, and they put Orlando in California and San Bernardino in Florida.

“If you don’t even know where the attack was, you probably weren’t responsible for it.” 

INNUMBERS

• 28 Completed, failed or foiled terrorist attacks recorded in the EU in 2022.

• 380 People arrested by EU member states for terrorism-related offenses in 2022.

Source: Europol

Just last week, two Somali refugees living in Arizona pleaded guilty to attempting to join Daesh. The men, who were arrested in 2019, had allegedly made plans to travel to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, with one stating his wish to martyr himself and to become “the beheading guy.”

A June report by NBC highlighted the Department of Homeland Security’s identification of 400 Central Asian immigrants who may have been brought to the US by a Daesh-affiliated human smuggling network.

Though some of these individuals have been found, the department claims the whereabouts of at least 50 are still unknown.




US Customs and Border Patrol agents load migrants into a vehicle after groups of migrants walked into the US from Mexico at Jacumba Hot Springs, California, on June 5, 2024. The Department of Homeland Security are on the lookout for possible Daesh terrorists being smuggled into the US. (AFP/File) 

“Particularly through illegal immigration routes, that means most of the southern border, there has been an influx of people who have some degree of connection to Daesh,” Lorenzo Vidino, director of George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, told Arab News.

“This doesn’t mean that everybody smuggled in was Daesh, but nonetheless, the smuggling network had a Daesh connection, and so some individuals who have been arrested in the US have come through those routes and have known Daesh links.”

While Daesh may be able to infiltrate Western countries from overseas, Vidino says the number of native-born, self-radicalized individuals is likely to be far higher.

“If you look historically at the attacks that we’ve seen in the US over the last 10 years, most of them were perpetrated by Americans, not those who were smuggled through the southern border,” he said.




In this Daesh publicity image in 2015, a masked militant poses holding the terrorist group's banner somewhere in the deserts of Iraq or Syria. (Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

More than five years since Daesh’s defeat in its last territorial holdout of Baghouz in eastern Syria, many wonder what is drawing new recruits to the group. According to Schmidinger, there is rarely a single reason.

“The biographies of young men who join Daesh are very diverse,” he said.

“These are people who went through strong alienation from their societies. The reasons for this alienation are different. It can be psychological problems, it can be related to racism and anti-Muslim sentiment in Europe, it can be related to the failure of their educational or professional careers. It can be related to problems with their sexual orientation.

“There are different concrete reasons. But what they have in common is this alienation from European societies.”




(Source: The Soufan Group, 2014 and 2015/via European Parliamentary Research Service)

He added: “Daesh was here at the moment that they were searching for meaning, belonging and the ability to intervene in history. So you have a lot of people who feel powerless. They have the feeling that by perpetrating, for example, a terrorist attack, or by threatening European societies, they get power. They become masters of their own history.

“Especially for people who feel completely alienated and powerless, this is an attractive opportunity that gives them a kind of empowerment. I think one of the big problems for these people is that there is no other radical but humanistic alternative for them.”

Although Daesh and other extremist entities continue to pose a threat to Western states, there are ways to undermine their attack potential by eliminating their safe havens in the world’s ungoverned and unstable spaces.

Tens of thousands of Daesh-linked individuals are held in prisons and camps across northeast Syria, guarded by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF. However, these facilities have witnessed frequent violence and escape attempts.




Syrian Kurdish soldiers guard the al-Hol camp in Syria's northeastern Hasakeh governorate, which holds relatives of suspected Daesh fighters. (AFP/File)

Sympathizers in Europe have even organized fundraising campaigns to help Daesh-affiliated women held in these camps to support themselves and even to smuggle themselves out.

Siyamend Ali, a spokesperson for the Kurdish-led People’s Protection Units — a group affiliated with the SDF — told Arab News there are areas of northern Syria where Daesh and other extremist groups “can continue to train, gather resources, issue orders and propagandize.”

Tensions in northeast Syria between the SDF, Syrian regime forces and the Turkish military are also having a destabilizing effect, said Ali, increasing the likelihood of a Daesh resurgence in the region.

In addition to eliminating Daesh’s international networks and safe havens, Schmidinger says that the threat of future attacks in Europe can also be reduced through the implementation of social policies to promote integration and inclusion.




In this photo taken on July 21, 2014, British women wait to attend a gathering in London of the "Families Against Stress and Trauma," which was formed to dissuade young people from traveling to Syria and Iraq to join the Daesh group. (Getty Images)

“You will never be able to completely stop it. We will always face some people on the fringes of society who will be attracted to extremist organizations like Daesh,” he said.

“But it is possible to reduce the number by reducing the feeling of alienation from society. By giving all people the chance for education, a proper job, and to give people — especially young people — the chance to participate in society and politics, it will keep them from feeling that they are powerless and can’t change anything.

“They won’t need an extremist organization to give them the feeling that they can change things in society.”
 

 


WHO sounds alarm over surging global cholera cases in 2025

WHO sounds alarm over surging global cholera cases in 2025
Updated 27 sec ago
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WHO sounds alarm over surging global cholera cases in 2025

WHO sounds alarm over surging global cholera cases in 2025
  • Dr. Philippe Barboza, cholera team lead at the WHO, said that more than 100,000 cases and 1,300 deaths have already been reported globally in the first few months of 2025

GENEVA: The World Health Organization has raised serious concerns over a sharp global rise in cholera infections and deaths, warning that the disease is spreading to new regions and threatening vulnerable populations already burdened by conflict and climate-related crises.

Speaking in Geneva on Friday, Dr. Philippe Barboza, cholera team lead at the WHO, said that more than 100,000 cases and 1,300 deaths have already been reported globally in the first few months of 2025.

Preliminary data from 2024 revealed 810,000 cases and 5,900 deaths, which marked a significant increase compared to 2023. However, Barboza cautioned that the actual numbers are likely higher due to incomplete reporting.

“Cholera should not exist in the 21st century,” he said. “Yet it is now spreading to countries where it had never been present before, such as Namibia and Kenya.”

In several countries, the case fatality rate has exceeded 1 percent, with Angola standing out as particularly hard-hit.

Barboza, who recently returned from the country, reported a fatality rate of over 4 percent, and warned of the disease’s rapid spread within Angola and to neighboring nations.

Angola currently accounts for 36 percent of all global cholera cases reported in 2025.

The WHO and its partners have responded by dispatching rapid deployment teams, setting up treatment facilities, and conducting staff training across affected regions.

Elsewhere, Myanmar has reported 12,000 acute cholera cases since July 2024, while Haiti is grappling with an outbreak but lacks the necessary funding to manage it effectively.

Barboza emphasized the compounded impact of armed conflict and climate change in accelerating the spread of cholera, stressing the need for joint action and sustained investment to prevent further outbreaks.

As of late March, the WHO had 5.6 million treatment doses stockpiled for emergency responses. However, soaring global demand highlights the urgent need for expanded vaccine production, with Barboza saying: “Cholera should not be killing anyone in the 21st century.”


Russian missile strike kills 14 in Ukraine leader’s home city

Russian missile strike kills 14 in Ukraine leader’s home city
Updated 17 min 28 sec ago
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Russian missile strike kills 14 in Ukraine leader’s home city

Russian missile strike kills 14 in Ukraine leader’s home city
  • The missile struck a residential area near a children’s playground and wounded more than 50 people
  • “It was preliminarily a ballistic missile attack. As of now, 14 people have been killed, including six children,” Zelensky said

KYIV: A Russian ballistic missile strike on Volodymyr Zelensky’s home city of Kryvyi Rig killed 14 people on Friday, including six children, the Ukrainian leader said.
The missile struck a residential area near a children’s playground and wounded more than 50 people, according to the head of the city’s military administration.
Unverified videos on social media appeared to show bodies lying on a street, while another showed a plume of smoke rising into the evening sky.
“It was preliminarily a ballistic missile attack. As of now, 14 people have been killed, including six children,” Zelensky said on Telegram.
The rescue operation was ongoing, he added.
Regional governor Sergiy Lysak said the number of reported casualties was “constantly increasing.”
“There is only one reason why this continues — Russia does not want a ceasefire and we see it. The whole world sees it,” Zelensky said.
“And only the world’s pressure on Russia, all efforts to strengthen Ukraine, our air defense, our forces — only this will determine when the war will end.”
The Ukrainian leader was born in Kryvyi Rig, which had a pre-war population of around 600,000 people.
US President Donald Trump’s administration has been pushing for a speedy end to the more than three-year war, holding talks with both Russia and Ukraine.
Moscow has rejected a joint US-Ukrainian proposal for an unconditional and full ceasefire, while Ukraine has accused Russia of dragging out talks with no intention of halting its offensive.
Kryvyi Rig, in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region, is about 60 kilometers (37 miles) from the front line but has regularly been targeted by Russian drones and missiles.
A previous Russian ballistic attack on the city on Wednesday killed at least four people and wounded more than a dozen others.
Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of the city’s military administration, said the missile landed near a children’s playground.
Five apartment buildings were damaged, interior minister Igor Klymenko said.
He said police had blocked off the area to maintain order.
“The police are documenting the consequences of Russia’s war crime and accepting statements from the victims,” he added.
Social media video from the scene showed a car in flames, while people could be heard shouting.
Andriy Kovalenko, a Ukrainian official tasked with countering disinformation, described the missile involved in the attack as an “Iskander.”
The Iskander is a Russian ballistic missile system that can have a range of up to 500 kilometers (311 miles).
“This is a deliberate strike to kill a large number of people,” Kovalenko said.


New humanitarian crisis looms in Afghanistan as Pakistan forces refugees to return

New humanitarian crisis looms in Afghanistan as Pakistan forces refugees to return
Updated 04 April 2025
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New humanitarian crisis looms in Afghanistan as Pakistan forces refugees to return

New humanitarian crisis looms in Afghanistan as Pakistan forces refugees to return
  • Mass deportation coincides with huge foreign aid cuts under new US policies
  • Deadline for hundreds of thousands of Afghans to leave Pakistan was March 31

KABUL: Pakistan’s plan to expel most of its Afghan refugees this year will trigger a new humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, aid groups warn, as foreign funding has been slashed and existing infrastructure is inadequate to support returnees.

Pakistan is home to about 3 million Afghans, many of whom fled their country during decades of war. This number includes Afghans born in Pakistan, as well as those who sought shelter after the Taliban returned to power in 2021.

They are the main group facing deportation under the Pakistani government’s nationwide crackdown to force out foreigners living in the country illegally. The drive also includes Afghan Citizen Card holders, who were given a deadline to leave by March 31. Pakistani authorities confirmed last week they were not extending the deadline.

According to UN data, 800,000 people with Afghan Citizen Cards and 1 million undocumented Afghans are currently set to be expelled. Since the launch of the crackdown in 2023, more than 843,000 Afghans have returned to their homeland.

“If they come in hundreds of thousands or millions, it will create another crisis in the country,” Abdul Fatah Jawad, director of Ehsas Welfare and Social Services Organization, told Arab News.

“Finding houses, jobs, and educational opportunities will be very difficult for this huge number of returnees. Health is another challenge.”

Over the past two months, more than 200 health facilities across Afghanistan have been either suspended or closed, and another 200 will shut by June due to external funding shortfalls, which come amid massive US aid cuts under the Donald Trump administration.

The US, which invaded Afghanistan in 2001, was its largest aid donor. It has been cutting its support since 2021. Washington withdrew its troops from Afghanistan after the collapse of its Western-backed regime and imposed sanctions on the country’s new rulers. It also froze all projects after spending billions on two decades of military and development operations.

The moves led to Afghanistan’s economic collapse and the disruption of basic services such as healthcare, education, and food distribution. Millions of people were left without essential support due to the collapse of institutions and infrastructure.

As the economy continues to reel and new aid cuts are implemented, the return of refugees will place an additional strain on a system that may not be able to bear it.

“With the overall shortage of donors’ financial aid, especially after the recent US funding cuts, Afghanistan is not prepared to receive large numbers of returnees at once and provide them with housing and livelihood facilities. This is a significant challenge and will certainly exacerbate the ongoing crisis in the country,” said Fareed-ud-Din Noori, country director of Women for Afghan Women, a US-based organization that has been providing shelter, protection and food services to returnees.

“Several international and national organizations that provided critical services to returnees in resettlement and reintegration areas in the country were forced to either close their offices or suspend their projects due to unavailability of funds.”

The prospect of immediately finding jobs for hundreds of thousands of families is unlikely.

“With unemployment levels skyrocketing across the country and livelihood prospects looking grim, these returnees will face significant challenges in starting a new life in the country. Afghanistan’s aid-dependent economy will come under increasing pressure,” Noori said.

“The international community’s financial support is compulsory to enable a proper response to the influx of returnees.”

The Afghan government, too, does not have a clear plan of how to handle the number of returning nationals and integrate them with the rest of the society. Its Refugee and Repatriation Minister Mawlawi Abdul Kabir said last month that Afghanistan would encourage its nationals to come back to the country, but they should be given time and return “according to an organized and gradual mechanism instead of forced deportation.”

Dr. Tayeb Khan, economist and lecturer at Kateb University in Kabul, warned that refugee children in particular will be affected by the forced migration.

“All of this is putting increasing pressure on the country’s fragile economy, leading to greater dependence on humanitarian aid and deepening the poverty situation. The government alone will not be able to integrate children of these returnees into schools and provide them with essential health services,” he said.

“Most of these refugees have established their own lives and businesses over the years they have lived abroad … When they are forced to return to Afghanistan against their will, they will struggle with finding a job or work at first. Tens of thousands of people in the country are already finding it very difficult to get employed, especially after development projects were suspended following the withdrawal of international funding from Afghanistan.”


Police summon US scholar in Thailand after army alleges he insulted the monarchy

Police summon US scholar in Thailand after army alleges he insulted the monarchy
Updated 04 April 2025
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Police summon US scholar in Thailand after army alleges he insulted the monarchy

Police summon US scholar in Thailand after army alleges he insulted the monarchy
  • A copy of the police summons says the regional army command filed charges against Chambers, including violating the law against defaming the monarchy
  • The 3rd Army Area, covering Thailand’s northern region, was named as the plaintiff in the document

BANGKOK: The Thai army has filed a criminal complaint against an American scholar working in Thailand, alleging that he insulted the country’s monarchy, an offense punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
Paul Chambers, a political science lecturer, said police came to his workplace at Naresuan University in the northern province of Phitsanulok on Friday morning to serve him with an arrest warrant and summoning him to the local police station to formally hear the charges.
Chambers said he will report himself on Tuesday and hopes to get released on bail.
“I’m basically in limbo because I can’t go anywhere. I’m not supposed to,” he told The Associated Press. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’m kind of nervous.”
A copy of the police summons, seen by the AP, says the regional army command filed charges against Chambers, including violating the law against defaming the monarchy and the Computer Crime Act.


The letter, signed by Phitsanulok City police chief Watcharapong Sitthirungroj, said the warrant was approved by the Phitsanulok Provincial Court on March 31. Watcharapong denied any knowledge of the charges against Chambers when first reached by the AP, but when asked about his signature on the document, said he couldn’t immediately comment and asked a reporter to call back.
The 3rd Army Area, covering Thailand’s northern region, was named as the plaintiff in the document, but could not be reached for comment. Army spokesperson Winthai Suvaree could not immediately be reached.
The summons did not explain the details of the offense that Chambers was accused of. Chambers said he believes it was related to a webinar last October in which he discussed the influence of the military in Thai politics.
Thailand’s lese majeste law calls for three to 15 years’ imprisonment for anyone who defames, insults or threatens the king, the queen, the heir apparent or the regent.
Critics say it is among the harshest such laws anywhere and has been used in Thailand to punish critics of the government and institutions such as the military. The army plays a major role in politics and has staged 13 successful coups since Thailand became a constitutional monarchy in 1932, most recently just 11 years ago.
It is rare for a foreigner to be charged under the law, which has been applied frequently in the past decade during a period of political polarization.
Public criticism of the monarchy, a linchpin of Thai identity, used to be rare, but student-led pro-democracy protests began to challenge that taboo in 2020, openly criticizing the institution. That led to vigorous prosecutions under what was previously a little-used law.
The advocacy group Thai Lawyers for Human Rights has said that since early 2020, more than 270 people — many of them student activists — have been charged with violating the lese majeste law, often referred to as Article 112.


Everything I did was for my country, Duterte says via daughter

Everything I did was for my country, Duterte says via daughter
Updated 04 April 2025
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Everything I did was for my country, Duterte says via daughter

Everything I did was for my country, Duterte says via daughter
  • “Everything I did, I did for my country. (I don’t know) whether that statement is acceptable or not, but I want it out to the world,” said Sara, relaying her father’s words
  • The vice president would not be drawn as to whether this amounted to an admission of responsibility for the crimes her father is facing at the ICC

THE HAGUE: Philippine ex-president Rodrigo Duterte, facing International Criminal Court charges over his deadly narcotics crackdown, said “everything I did, I did for my country,” his daughter told reporters Friday.
Sara Duterte, who is also her country’s vice president, was briefing journalists at the detention center in The Hague after a long conversation with her father interned inside.
She also relayed that her father wants proceedings against him to move as quickly as possible, with the 80-year-old fearful of dying in custody.
“Everything I did, I did for my country. (I don’t know) whether that statement is acceptable or not, but I want it out to the world,” said Sara, relaying her father’s words.
The vice president would not be drawn as to whether this amounted to an admission of responsibility for the crimes her father is facing at the ICC.
It was the first reported comments from Rodrigo Duterte since he appeared tired and dazed at an initial appearance at the ICC, which he attended by videolink and barely spoke.
In a video posted when Duterte arrived in the Netherlands last month to face the charges, he had said “I will be responsible for all of this.”
Duterte stands accused of the crime against humanity of murder over his years-long campaign against drug users and dealers that rights groups said killed thousands.
In the prosecutor’s application for his arrest, he said Duterte’s alleged crimes were “part of a widespread and systematic attack directed against the civilian population in the Philippines.”
“Potentially tens of thousands of killings were perpetrated,” the prosecutor alleged of the campaign that targeted mostly poor men, often without proof they were linked to drugs.
In an interview with AFP earlier Friday, a lawyer for victims, Gilbert Andres, said loved-ones of those affected were seeking “truth and justice” from a potential trial.
The next hearing is scheduled for September 23, where the charges against him will be laid out, but Sara Duterte said her father was eager to get proceedings underway.
“He wants to go back to the Philippines. He said, ‘I am an old man. I can die anytime. But I want to die in my country’,” said Sara Duterte.