ISIS Taylor Swift terror-plot teen ‘was radicalised by hate preacher’

A teen terror suspect who plotted a bloodbath at a Taylor Swift concert in Austria was radicalised by a notorious hate-preacher in Berlin, it is believed. Beran A., the 19-year-old ISIS fanatic who was building a bomb in his parents’ back garden and planned to mow down concertgoers this week, was influenced online by Berlin’s rabid hate preacher Abul Baraa, according to German intelligence sources cited by BILD.

Baraa – real name Ahmad Armih – is a well-known figure among Germany security services who has 46,000 Instagram followers and over 81,000 on TikTok. peaking to Bild newspaper, the Berlin Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s equivalent of MI5, said: ‘The closure of his Berlin mosque and the coronavirus pandemic led to greater engagement on social media. His rhetoric and speaking style are particularly catching on with young people.’

It comes as images emerged of the garden and inconspicuous outhouse where Beran A. is said to have been constructing his [self-murder] bomb while his parents were on holiday in their native North Macedonia. Taylor Swift was due to perform in front of an estimated 170,000 fans on August 8, 9, and 10 at Vienna’s Ernst-Happel-Stadion, but the shows were cancelled amid fears of the terror plot.

A few years ago, Beran A.’s parents – who immigrated to Austria from North Macedonia – moved into a newly built house in the Neunkirchen district of Ternitz with him and his younger sister. Ternitz residents told local media that Beran, who was born in Austria and attended a local school, used to be a ‘harmless boy next door’ often seen lounging around in jeans and trainers. But neighbours claim he underwent a dramatic aesthetic and behavioural transformation coinciding with his pledge of allegiance to ISIS last month, adding he began growing out a bushy beard.

This feature was clearly visible in a shocking photo of the would-be terrorist posing with huge zombie knives and an ISIS flag unveiled yesterday by German media. The 19-year-old was arrested in Ternitz Wednesday morning while a second teen, aged 17, was detained in the Austrian capital, according to director-general for public safety Franz Ruf.

It later emerged that Beran A. and his accomplice had planned to attack Swift’s concert venue by driving into the crowd outside and attacking them with knives and machetes before detonating a [self-murder] bomb to kill as many fans as possible. Until two weeks ago, Beran A. had worked in the same stainless steel plant in Ternitz as his father. 

He was doing an apprenticeship as a retail salesman in the factory, where he had access to the plant’s laboratory, including various chemicals. During a raid on the family home in Ternitz, bomb disposal experts this week secured chemicals required to produce the explosive triacetone triperoxide (TATP), which Beran A. is said to have already experimented with.

TATP is often used by ISIS in terror attacks and requires acetone as well as hydrogen peroxide, which officials confirmed was found in the house. Ruf confirmed at a press conference yesterday that the suspect’s ‘preparatory action’ in the home in Ternitz focused on the manufacturing of explosives. The head of the Directorate of State Security and Intelligence, Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, said Beran A. was ‘clearly radicalised in the direction of the Islamic State and thinks it is right to kill infidels’. Beran A.’s parents and sister reportedly are currently on holiday in North Macedonia, but police is expected to question the parents over their son upon their return.

Following his arrest, the teen fully confessed to his plans to ‘kill as many people as possible outside the concert venue’, Austrian security officials said. His planned terror attack was supposed to end with him detonating his homemade bomb and killing himself in the process, according to the Austrian Heute newspaper. Firebrand preacher Baraa, who is said to have played a part in radicalising the terror suspects, once preached at the infamous ‘As-Sahaba Mosque’ in Berlin. Police raided this mosque in 2018 on suspicion of terrorist financing and later shut it down.

The location had been a hub for radical Islamists, including Reda Seyam, a high-ranking German member of ISIS, and Denis Cuspert, one of Germany’s most notorious ISIS fighters. Following the closure of the mosque, Baraa moved his preaching online, where he continued to spread extremist ideology. In his videos, he chillingly refers to the ‘kuffar’ (infidels) waging war against Islam, urging his followers to resist this perceived oppression. ‘How long will this humiliation go on… how far will this go, with this war, with this terrorism of the kuffar against the Muslims?’ Baraa asks in one of his inflammatory sermons. His influence has grown over the years, with the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution noting that he has become a ‘star’ in the Islamist scene, despite multiple investigations against him.

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