He Wanted to Be a Terrorist Superstar. Instead, He Got 15 Years and a Failed Bomb

Beran A. wanted to be famous. He wanted to be a hero – in the warped universe of the Islamic State, at least. He wanted his name on terrorist channels and his face on the news. On Thursday, he got the second part. Just not the way he imagined.

The 21-year-old Austrian with North Macedonian roots was sentenced to 15 years in prison by a court in Wiener Neustadt for plotting an attack on a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna. A jury found him guilty of terrorist crimes, preparing to build a bomb, attempting to import various weapons into Austria, and complicity in an attempted murder in Mecca. His co-defendant, Arda K., received 12 years.

Beran A. had already confessed at the start of his trial in late April. He had been planning for months. One of his schemes was to pose as a security guard to get inside the Ernst-Happel-Stadion, where Swift's three sold-out shows were scheduled. He even contacted the security company responsible. Another plan was cruder: drive a truck into a crowd, "armed with bombs and knives." He looked into that too. It failed. He did not have the right driver's license. He could not order firearms from abroad. And he could not build a bomb – the sulfuric acid police found during a search of his home turned out to have too low a concentration.

"I was a big IS fanatic," Beran A. said during his interrogation. He posted his allegiance to the terrorist group online and desperately wanted the Islamic State's propaganda channels to report on him. He wanted to become a legend. Internationally famous.

He almost got his wish. A US intelligence agency noticed his online activity and tipped off Austrian authorities. They arrested him the day before Swift's first concert. All three shows were cancelled for security reasons. When Beran A. saw the cancellation on television from his detention cell, he laughed. He had made headlines – without anyone having to die. "My mission was accomplished," he said.

The radicalization of Beran A. happened fast. Over the course of about a year, the once-struggling student – bullied, experimenting with drugs, drifting into isolation – fell under the spell of a former school friend named Hasan E. The friend sent him Islamist, violence-glorifying, and misogynistic videos. A psychologist described Hasan E. as a leader figure whom Beran A. desperately wanted to impress. He became so extreme that even within salafist circles, people kept their distance. A religious teacher from a mosque association testified that he knew Beran A. and backed away because of his increasingly radical views.

Hasan E. is now in a Saudi Arabian prison. In March 2024, he stabbed a security officer near the Grand Mosque in Mecca and wounded four other people. He faces the death penalty. He was not present at the trial in Wiener Neustadt. But his attempted murder was not a solo act, prosecutors said. It was part of a three-pronged plot: Hasan E. in Saudi Arabia, Beran A. in Austria, and Arda K. in Turkey were planning simultaneous attacks. Their targets were moderate Muslims – people they considered "unbelievers" for not practicing their faith strictly enough.

Beran A. was in Dubai when his friend struck in Mecca. Arda K. was in Istanbul. Unlike Hasan E., they both backed out of carrying out their own attacks. But prosecutors argued they were complicit. They stayed in close contact with Hasan E., speaking with him for hours on the phone before the attack. The jury agreed. Both were found guilty of complicity in the attempted murder.

In court, the two young men expressed regret. "Today I am a completely different person," Beran A. said. But a psychological expert could not say whether that remorse was genuine. The man, she noted, constantly contradicts himself.

His mother told the Kronen-Zeitung that her son had been a loner, bullied during a difficult school and training period. He experimented with drugs. Then he disappeared into a parallel world. The friend – the one now facing the death penalty in Saudi Arabia – pulled him in. And Beran A., desperate for approval, followed him all the way to a terrorist plot that never happened, a bomb that never exploded, and a prison sentence that will keep him locked up until he is 36.