Munich train stations reopen after warning of ‘imminent’ attacks by IS suicide bombers
PUBLISHED : Friday, 01 January, 2016, 11:35am
UPDATED : Friday, 01 January, 2016, 12:48pm
Agencies in Munich
Heavily armed police guard Munich train station as they called on the public to avoid large gatherings. Photo: AFP
Two Munich train stations reopened early Friday after they were closed on New Year’s Eve over “concrete” intelligence about a threat of an imminent suicide attack linked to the Islamist State extremist movement, police said.
Trains were again using Munich’s main station as well as another in the district of Pasing, a police spokeswoman said. Officials would carry out spot checks on individuals, she added.
The stations had been evacuated because of the possibility of an attack.
“We have concrete tips, which we can’t sweep under the rug,” a spokeswoman said shortly before midnight Thursday, as evacuations were under way at the two stations.
Citing information received from an allied intelligence service, Bavarian state Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said the threat was linked to the Islamic State organisation.
“Our general approach is that we do not let terrorists dictate how we live our lives,” Herrmann said.
The main entrance to the closed central station in Munich is cordoned after German police said that they had intelligence that a terror attack was being planned for New Year's Eve. Photo: AFP
Security was also beefed up in Berlin, where one million people welcomed 2016 at the landmark Brandenburg Gate.
Shortly after the Paris attacks, German police cancelled a friendly soccer game between Germany and the Netherlands in Hanover because of fears of a planned bomb attack. No arrests were made and no explosives were found after the cancellation.
Last year was the deadliest year of militant attacks in Europe since 2004. Evidence that two of the Paris attackers had entered the continent under cover of a wave of Middle Eastern refugees heightened anxieties over the migration crisis.
Munich police tightened security across the southern state of Bavaria, which was the entry point from Austria for virtually all of the just over one million asylum seekers who arrived in Germany last year.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has rebuffed pressure to clamp down on migrant arrivals along Bavaria’s border with Austria.
Opposition to her stance grew at home and abroad after two of the suicide bombers in the Paris attacks were found to have carried fake Syrian passports.
In an apparent effort to allay those concerns, Germany said on Thursday it would start holding personal hearings for asylum seekers from Syria as of Friday, reversing a policy of granting almost automatic refugee status for Syrians.
Tribune News Service, Reuters
