Authorities said that the suicide bombers would be wanting to commit an attack on New Year’s Eve and asked people in the country to stay away from the city’s main train stations and a second train station in the city’s Pasing neighbourhood.
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As New Year celebrations were underway, an official police account tweeted: “Actual lead that in Munich a terror attack is planned”.
The action by German authorities added to jitters in many capitals as Europe ushered in the New Year with heightened security after a year of militant attacks, the biggest of which killed 130 in Paris in November.
A spokeswoman at the Dutch airport said: “The 29-year-old man was arrested at around 8am”.
Police in Munich are hunting Islamic State suspects after a foreign intelligence agency warned of a “concrete” plan to send suicide bombers to the city’s train stations during New Year’s Eve celebrations.
“We received names”, said Hubertus Andrä, Munich’s chief of police.
A large deployment of 550 officers overnight has been cut to 100, and Mr Andrae urged the public to “live as you did before”.
“It was not a false alarm – it was information and we have to do our job and we have to investigate this and we have to guarantee the security and the safety for our people here in Munich”.
German authorities said Friday that five to seven people might have been involved in the terrorist threat. “Please avoid crowds and train stations”. While the stations have since reopened, Munich police are still on high alert and are carrying out more security checks that usual.
A spokesman said the force had received two “concrete” pieces of information about a possible attack and warned that other locations could still be targeted despite the train station evacuations.
The suspects are believed to be Islamic State militants from Syria and Iraq, according to Joachim Herrman, interior minister for the state of Bavaria.
“The inquiries go on of course and we will remain watchful”, the spokesperson said, reiterating the law enforcers would issue warnings if they could not completely exclude a danger for the population.
“We all know that there is a high risk of attacks in Europe and also here in Germany and Bavaria”.
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The alert brought an eerie silence to Munich’s busy rail hub, which over the summer made headlines for the massive turn-out of volunteers welcoming record numbers of refugees to Germany. Heavily armed police officers were stationed at all entrances and passengers were spot-checked. Revellers seeking to access the site were turned away.
