Munich suicide bomb plot: police hunt Isis suspects behind New Year's Eve threat
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.
Five to seven people were reportedly planning suicide bomb attacks on
the main Hauptbahnhof station and Pasing station at the western end of
the city centre, in what German authorities said was a “serious,
imminent threat”, prompting them to evacuate the sites and warn people
to stay away.
Munich police president Hubertus Andrä told a news conference on
Friday that German officials had received a “very concrete” tip that
suicide attacks were planned at train stations in the southern city at
midnight.
“We received names. We can’t say if they are in Munich or in fact in Germany,” Andrä said.
About 550 officers have been deployed to secure the city and no arrests had yet been made, he said.
The Bavarian interior minister, Joachim Herrmann, told a media
conference on Thursday night: “The threat was very concretely centred on
midnight and at these two places.” He added that all necessary security
measures were being taken.
Citing anonymous security sources, Bavarian state broadcaster BR reported
that Germany had received warnings from both US and French intelligence
agencies earlier in the day. According to the intelligence, seven
Iraqis living in Munich were named as the potential attackers, and they
were planning to enter the stations in pairs and blow themselves up
simultaneously.
Munich police spokeswoman Elizabeth Matzinger could not confirm the
nationalities or the suspected residence of the suspects, or whether a
manhunt for identified individuals was underway.
“Investigations are happening, but I cannot give out any details,
that is a tactical information,” she told the Guardian. “I can’t confirm
whether they are Iraqis, but it was apparently a group of five to seven
people affiliated to IS [Isis].”
The two stations were shut down and evacuated around midnight, while
special unit police officers armed with automatic weapons were stationed
at entrances.
Munich police issued a statement saying that an attack was expected in
the city during the night, and warned people to avoid the two stations
and large crowds in general. But by 4 am, the situation appeared to have
calmed significantly, and the two stations were re-opened.
“The closures at the main station and the Pasing station have been
lifted, but there selective controls are being carried out there,”
Matzinger said. “The situation after midnight is more relaxed than it
was before midnight, but notwithstanding that we cannot give the all
clear. We had a terrorist warning from the French secret service and we
are still taking it seriously, because we can’t rule out that it is not
serious – and as long as there is still the danger of a grain of truth
to it, we will continue our measures.”
At the media conference, Herrmann said the intelligence had not been
100% reliable, but serious enough that it could not be ignored.
He compared the assessment of the danger to that in Hanover on 17
November, when an international friendly football was called off and the
stadium evacuated at short notice. There too, a foreign intelligence
tip-off had led to the alert, but no arrests were made and no explosives
found in the stadium.
“The concrete tip-off came from one source,” Andrä said, before
adding that there was no indication yet the threats could be confirmed
or that any suspects had been arrested.
However, a spokesman for the police also said there would be a
reinforced police presence in Munich city centre in the coming days. The
police force was also bolstered in and around the Brandenburg Gate in
Berlin, where huge New Year’s celebrations were being happening. All
large bags and backpacks were banned from the site of the huge street
party.
Despite the Munich police warnings to stay away from big crowds,
thousands of people were on the streets of Munich at midnight to welcome
the new year with fireworks.
DPA reported massive delays in the city’s public transportation
system after both train stations were quickly evacuated and trains no
longer stopped there.
The latest development comes amid ongoing security operations across Europe.
Police in Belgium detained six people during house searches in Brussels
on Thursday in an investigation into an alleged plot to carry out an
attack in the city.
Earlier in the week, two other people were arrested on suspicion of preparing attacks
on “emblematic sites” in Brussels during the celebrations. Another man
was questioned over links to last month’s Paris attacks. Authorities in the Belgian capital said
a fireworks display and festivities that attracted 100,000 people in
2014 would not go ahead after revealing the alleged jihadi plot.
“Unfortunately we have been forced to cancel the fireworks and all
that was planned for tomorrow [Thursday] evening,” the mayor, Yvan
Mayeur, told Belgian broadcaster RTBF. “It’s better not to take any
risks.”
In Paris, where 130 people were killed in December,
the annual fireworks display on the Champs Élysées was called off and
11,000 police, soldiers and firefighters patrolled the French capital.
More than 100,000 police were deployed across the country, according to
the interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve.
Red Square in Moscow, traditionally a place where people gather to
ring in the new year, was closed. “It’s no secret that Moscow is one of
the choice targets for terrorists,” the city’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin,
said recently.
New York City said it had its tightest ever New Year’s Eve security to protect an estimated 1 million revellers.
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