Germany Lifts Alert After Overnight Munich Panic

Throughout the Munich alert, police kept up a stream of messages in several languages on Twitter, at times alternating incongruously between security warnings and New Year greetings.

United States authorities had also earlier warned that a plot was being hatched, Bayerischer Rundfunk said.

The station was cordoned off and heavily armed police blocked the entrances.

But German investigators, acting on information from a foreign intelligence service, said they have not substantiated the threat.

‘I believe this decision was right because I think we can not take unnecessary risks when we are dealing with such concrete threats, concrete locations, and a concrete time, ‘ Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said today.

Police in Munich have warned of a “serious, imminent threat” of terror attack, as the city moves towards its New Year’s celebrations.

“The Federal Criminal Police Office informed the Bavarian police on New Year’s Eve of the existence of a tip-off from a friendly intelligence agency that Islamic State plans a concrete attack, attacks tonight (Thursday), at midnight at the Munich central station or/and Pasing (station)”, Herrmann said.

Andrae refuted speculation that the threat was a false alarm, saying that “if there is such information, we have to act”. But a Munich police spokesman said on Friday: “The situation has not eased and the terror alert remains”. He would not give any further details on the alleged attackers and could not confirm if they actually existed.

One resident, Oliver Habel, said that he had spent New Year’s Eve in a restaurant in the southern part of the city, and that he learned about the terrorism scare only Friday morning.

In Russia, the state-run news agency RIA Novosti said that about 500 people had been evacuated from two train stations in Moscow after the police were told that bombs had been planted.

Belgian authorities announced the release Friday of three more people in connection with a suspected plot to carry out attacks in Brussels on New Year’s Eve, according to The Associated Press.

154-a-16-(Sajjan Gohel (SAH’-zhahn GOH’-hehl), director for worldwide security, Asia Pacific Foundation, in AP interview)-“number of occasions”-Security analyst Sajjan Gohel says the terror threat in Munich comes as no surprise”.

“The situation will continue to remain serious in the New Year”, Mr de Maizière told Bild newspaper.

But many revellers continued their planned celebrations.

Cities across Europe have been on edge since an attack in Paris in November that killed 130 people.