Munich train stations have reopened, as Bavaria’s top security official said that the warning about Islamic State extremists intending to blow themselves up in the German city was no longer acute.
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Citing a “serious terror threat”, police shut down the central rail station, Hauptbahnhof, and the Pasing rail station in western Munich shortly before midnight Thursday and some 600 heavily armed police guarded the evacuated buildings through the night. “Please avoid crowds and train stations”.
Germany remained on high alert Friday after police received a “concrete” threat of terror attacks on two train stations in Munich during the height of the New Year’s Eve celebrations.
It is imperative to state that days after the Paris attack, a stadium in Hannover was evacuated after a terror threat against a friendly match between Germany and the Netherlands.
Bavaria’s Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said the closure of the railway stations was “the right decision, because I think we can not run any risks when we have such specific threats – a specific place and timing”.
A tip-off hours before new year celebrations in Munich named militants from Iraq and Syria who were planning attacks, but police have been unable to find the suspects and are not even sure if they exist or are in the country, German authorities say.
The newspaper reported that the plot involved plans for suicide bombers to detonate explosives at the stations, with others waiting to detonate secondary devices when emergency services arrived at the scene.
Herrmann told reporters later on Friday that the police presence at the train stations had been reduced.
But a Munich police spokesman said today: ‘The situation has not eased and the terror alert remains’.
European capitals have been on high alert since November when IS jihadists slaughtered 130 people in a series of gun and suicide attacks in Paris, stoking fears new assaults could happen over the Christmas and New Year holidays.
The BBC is reporting that police are looking for “five to seven” suspects who are believed to be of Iraqi and Syrian nationality.
“At the moment, we still have around 1,000 security additional officers on duty”, Hubertus Andrae, the Munich police chief, said at a press conference.
Police informed of “two concrete tips” of planned suicide attacks with “Islamist background”, with the threat linked to Islamic State (IS).
The warning came only hours before the city rang in the new year.
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Belgian police said late on Thursday three people were being held for questioning as part of an investigation into an alleged plot.
