German police have arrested five men in connection with an alleged Islamist terror plot to attack targeting a Christmas market in southern Bavaria.
According to the Bild newspaper, three Moroccans aged 22, 28, and 30 were arrested alongside a 37-year-old Syrian and a 56-year-old Egyptian suspected of planning to use a vehicle to attack people at a Christmas market in the town of Dingolfing.
The paper, citing sources within the Bavarian State Office for the Protection of the Constitution (LfV), reported that the Egyptian man is believed to have been a mosque prayer leader. He is accused of recruiting the three Moroccans to carry out an attack on the nearby Christmas market.
Investigators are said to be currently considering radical Islamism as the chief motivation for the suspected plot.
The fifth suspect, a Syrian national, is alleged to have encouraged the others to carry out the potential attack.
Confirming the arrests, Munich Attorney General, Reinhard Röttle, said: “The swift action demonstrates how effectively the cooperation between the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the police, and the Central Office for Combating Extremism and Terrorism (ZET) functions within the Bavarian security architecture.”
Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann added: “I thank all the authorities involved in the search and arrest operation, especially the Bavarian State Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the Bavarian Police This case impressively demonstrates the excellent responsiveness and efficiency of our security authorities and shows: We are capable of protecting our citizens!”
“Thanks to the excellent cooperation of our security authorities, several suspects were arrested in a very short time, thus preventing a potentially Islamist-motivated attack in Bavaria. The background to this must now be clarified by our specialist departments together with the Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office.”
The arrests come as German towns and cities continue to grapple with the threat of Islamist terror attacks on Christmas markets. Indeed, multiple Christmas markets in Germany, including in Kerpen and Overath, have cancelled their markets this year as costs to provide security against potential attacks became too expensive.
Christmas markets, one of the few remaining public Christian events in many European countries, have become a top target for attacks. For example, six people were killed and over three hundred more were injured last year after a Saudi pro-asylum activist ploughed a car into merrymakers a market in Magdeburg.
Previously, a Tunisian Islamist failed asylum seeker attacked a Berlin Christmas market in 2016, killing 12 people and injuring dozens more.
Germany is not the only European country grappling with security threats to Christmas markets. Earlier this month, the French government called for regional authorities to exercise “maximum vigilance” in the face of Islamist threats and to boost security at Christmas markets to create a “visible deterrent” against potential attacks.
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