VIENNA: “Austria to Strengthen Counter-Terrorism After Taylor Swift Plot”, Chancellor Karl Nehammer said on Tuesday (Aug 13) he would introduce steps to bolster Austria’s counter-terrorism capacity after authorities last week foiled a suspected ISIS-inspired plot against a concert due to be held by Taylor Swift in Vienna.
In a post on X, Nehammer said he was presenting a package of measures to enable “decisive action against terrorist activities”, linking to a media report setting out his plans to beef up domestic intelligence services.
The report referenced by Nehammer in Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung set out four points, including giving security services the ability to monitor communications sent on messaging apps – currently not permitted in the country.
Nehammer, a conservative seeking re-election next month, said after the alleged plot was uncovered that Austria needed to give intelligence agencies more powers to decrypt messages.
Opinion polls show the main threat to Nehammer’s Austrian People’s Party (OVP) is the far-right Freedom Party, which is leading the race to win the Sep 29 parliamentary election.
The FPO rails against what it casts as the “Islamisation” of Austria and has pledged to ban political Islam.
