German authorities have arrested five men suspected of planning an attack on a Christmas market, the Munich public prosecutor’s office said Saturday.
The foiled plot was targeting a Christmas market in the area of Dingolfing in the southern German state of Bavaria, German authorities said. The exact name of the market that was the target of the foiled plot has not yet been specified by authorities.
The Munich public’s prosector’s office said that four of the men had been issued formal arrest warrants, with the other individual in preventative custody.
German authorities are suspecting that the attack plans were based on an Islamist motive and that it would be carried out by car. The suspects include a 56-year-old Egyptian, a 37-year-old Syrian and three Moroccans aged 22, 28 and 30.
German newspaper Bild was the first outlet to report on the arrests. The Egyptian suspect had called for the Christmas market attack at a mosque in the Dingolfing-Landau area.
Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann told Bild that thanks to the “excellent cooperation of our security authorities” multiple suspects could be arrested in little time, preventing a possible Islamist-motivated attack in Bavaria.
