Munich stations reopen after ISIS-linked plot

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.

Police in Munich have warned people to stay away from the city’s main railway station and a station in the city’s Pasing district because of a “serious, imminent threat” of a terror attack. “Please avoid crowd gatherings as well as the central train station and the Pasing train station”.

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 nearly automatic refugee status for Syrians.

Munich police chief Hubertus Andrae has said it was unclear whether the suspects are still in the city or even in Germany.

Police closed the stations about an hour before midnight, and reopened them hours later.

A western NY bar owner who says his restaurant was the one identified by authorities as the target of a would-be terrorist says the man arrested in the plot is an aggressive panhandler. “Since the attacks in Paris, we have received several hints”. Germany shuts Munich train stations after tip IS planned attack Germany shuts Munich train stations after tip IS planned attack “We still have many colleagues deployed”.

Both stations have been evacuated, they said, and train services were no longer running at the two stations.

German intelligence agents were subsequently able to interview an informant in Iraq and French authorities also provided further information, the media said.

“The Bavarian authorities acted prudently, calmly and decisively, with the support of the federal police”, Germany’s interior minister, Thomas de Maizière, said.

Referring to the Munich scare, Mr Herrmann said the authorities “have nothing concrete about a place or time”.

Days after the November 13 attacks in Paris claimed by the Islamic State group that left 130 dead, German police called off an worldwide football match at the last minute due to a bomb threat. The FBI accused Emmanuel Lutchman of plotting to carry out an attack in the name of ISIS at a Rochester-area bar on New Year’s Eve.

Although an investigation was opened, no explosives were found nor arrests made.

Herrmann told reporters later on Friday that the police presence at the train stations had been reduced. Police detained six people on Thursday for questioning over an alleged plot to strike “emblematic sites” in Brussels during the year-end festivities.