German law enforcement and counterterrorism officials said they prevented a terrorist attack at a German Christmas market in Bavaria, Germany.
Five men were believed to be involved in a plan to drive a car into a crowd of people at a market in the Dingolfing-Landau area of Bavaria. The suspects were apprehended on Friday evening and believed to have an “Islamist motive,” BBC reported. The name of the Christmas market that was to be the target of the terrorist attack has not yet been released.
An Egyptian, three Moroccans, and a Syrian were detained in relation to the planned attack. The Egyptian suspect was an imam at a mosque in the Dingolfing-Landau district, according to multiple reports. German officials alleged he “called for a vehicle attack … with the aim of killing or injuring as many people as possible.” The Moroccan suspects allegedly agreed to carry out the plot and were encouraged and supported by the Syrian suspect “in their decision to commit the crime,” according to multiple reports.
Bavarian State Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann stated that the Central Unit for Combating Extremism and Terrorism of the Munich Public Prosecutor General’s Office and Bavaria’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution collaborated to foil the plot, which was described as being in its early stages. He credited the work of “excellent cooperation between our security services,” which helped prevent “a potentially Islamist-motivated attack.”
Security remains on high alert at Christmas markets throughout Germany, according to multiple reports. German Christmas markets are a popular travel destination in Europe during December, due to the Christmas holiday. They have also become a recent target for terrorist attacks in recent years.
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In 2024, a car driven by a Saudi-born doctor plowed into a crowd at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany. Six people were killed, and 338 were injured. In 2016, a failed asylum-seeker from Tunisia with loyalties to the Islamic State drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people and injuring 56.
The discovery of this planned attack came on the same weekend in which an ISIS-affiliated gunman killed two U.S. Army soldiers and a U.S. civilian interpreter in Syria, and fifteen people were killed by two gunmen in a terrorist attack during a Hanukkah event in Bondi Beach, Australia.
