German police issued an alert of an imminent attack in Munich, hours after evacuating two key train stations over fears militants from the Daesh were planning a New Year suicide bomb assault.
Advertisement
Munich train stations reopened and police lifted an alert of an imminent terrorist attack in the southern German city on January 1, but authorities say the situation remains “serious”.
Joachim Herrman, the interior minister for the state of Bavaria, has revealed that German authorities were notified of the threat by a “friendly intelligence service” and described it as a “concrete” tip.
With barely four hours to go until midnight, and therefore no time to check the intelligence, ZDF said the police had opted for caution and shut down the two railway stations.
Authorities were investigating intensively on Friday, Herrmann said, but so far had not made any arrests. “Please avoid crowd gatherings as well as the central train station and the Pasinger train station”, read a translation of the German tweet. He said that there were five to seven suspects and police had obtained the identities of several of them.
More than 500 police officers have been called in to secure the city amid the heightened threat.
Cities across Europe have been on alert for a possible New Year’s Eve attack.
“The tips included specified times and locations of the assailants from IS and we quickly came to the conclusion that we couldn’t just ignore the warnings from the intelligence agencies”, Herrmann told Bavaria’s BR public television network.
Police in Germany are on the hunt for possible suspects after launching a series of evacuations amid the threat of a possible terrorist attack in Munich.
Herrmann told reporters later on Friday that the police presence at the train stations had been reduced.
According to the president of Munich police, Hubertus Andrae, the police would continue to carry out more controls in the urban area in next few days and he asked for understanding.
Belgian police were also holding five people over an alleged New Year plot in Brussels.
Brussels New Year’s Eve fireworks celebrations were cancelled Wednesday, .
High-profile attacks claimed by ISIS and other groups have cast a shadow over New Year’s Eve celebrations around the world.
Advertisement
As CBS News foreign correspondent Elizabeth Palmer reported, Europe has been on edge in the six weeks following the November 13 terror attacks in Paris that killed 130 people.
