German Police Receive Information Islamic State Planned Suicide Attacks in Munich on New Year's Eve

BERLIN (AP) — Police in Munich warned of a "serious, imminent threat" by Islamic State group suicide bombers wanting to commit an attack on New Year's Eve and asked people to stay away from the city's main train station and a second train station in the city's Pasing neighborhood.

Bavaria's Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann told reporters Friday night at Munich's police headquarters authorities had received information that the militant group Islamic State was behind the threat.

Johannes Simon/Getty Images

Munich police president Hubertus Andrae said German authorities had been tipped off by a foreign intelligence service that IS was planning attacks with five to seven suicide bombers, the German news agency dpa reported. Andrae said so far there hadn't been any arrests.

Police spokesman Werner Kraus told The Associated Press that "after evaluating the situation, we started evacuating the train stations and also asked partygoers to stay away from big crowds outside."

Johannes Simon/Getty Images

The warning came only hours before the city rang in the new year.

Despite police warnings to stay away from big crowds, thousands of people were on the streets of Munich at midnight to welcome the new year with fireworks.

Dpa reported massive delays in the city's public transportation system after both train stations were quickly evacuated and trains were no longer stopped there.

Johannes Simon/Getty Images

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

A few days after the Paris attack, a soccer stadium in Hannover in central Germany was evacuated after a terror threat against a friendly match between Germany and the Netherlands. The authorities never reported any findings of explosives or concrete attack plans.

—