The ISIS teen who plotted a terror attack on a Taylor Swift concert has been pictured for the first time as neighbours say he radically changed his look recently.
The 19-year-old ISIS fanatic has been identified as Beran A., who lived in a newly-built semi-terraced house in Ternitz, south of Vienna, where he spent his childhood.
A few years ago, Beran A.’s parents – who immigrated to Austria from North Macedonia – moved into a new-built house in the Neunkirchen district of Ternitz with him and his younger sister.
WHAT NEIGHBORS SAY
Ternitz residents told local media that he used to be a ‘harmless boy next door’ in jeans and sneakers, who was born in Austria and attended a local school.
But Beran A. had changed recently, according to his neighbours, coinciding with his pledge of allegiance to ISIS in early July. He grew a long beard and was often spotted wearing a long-sleeved cotton shirt, with a new picture of him showing him posing with knives.
Mara T. told Austrian outlet Kurier that she had last seen the terror suspect on Tuesday morning, adding: ‘He looked like how you would imagine a sleeper agent for a terrorist cell.’
Another neighbour, Nicole, said the family was ‘inconspicuous and quiet’ and that they didn’t cause any problems.
She said that Beran A.’s mother speaks German ‘very well’, but that the father’s language skills were not as good.
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.
Behind the bright white walls of the family home in Ternitz, bomb disposal experts secured chemicals to produce the explosive triacetone triperoxide (TATP), which Beran A. is said to have already experimented with.
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WHAT NEXT?
Beran A.’s parents and sister are currently on holiday in North Macedonia, but police is expected to question the parents over their son upon their return.
Beran A. has been arrested alongside a 17-year-old. The suspects – who allegedly radicalised themselves online – took ‘preparatory actions’ for an attack – with Beran A. ‘focused’ on Swift’s Vienna concert, Ruf confirmed.
