One year after a deadly attack on a German Christmas market, police in the country have detained five men linked to a plot to replicate the crime.
The plot called for driving a vehicle into a Christmas market, as was done a year ago in Magdeburg, killing six people, according to the BBC.
Three Moroccans, an Egyptian, and a Syrian were detained on Friday.
Officials said an “Islamist motive” was suspected.
The 56-year-old Egyptian was alleged to have “called for a vehicle attack… with the aim of killing or injuring as many people as possible.”
The German newspaper Bild said the Egyptian man was a local imam.
Police said the Moroccans linked to the plot were allegedly going to be the ones to implement the plan.
“Police said the Moroccan men – aged 30, 28 and 22 – were arrested accused of having agreed to commit murder, while the Syrian man, a 37-year-old, was accused of encouraging the suspects ‘in their decision to commit the crime,’“ the BBC reported.
Officials indicated that a Christmas market in the Dingolfing-Landau area, which is northeast of Munich, was the likely target.
Joachim Herrmann, Bavaria’s state interior minister, said the “excellent cooperation between our security services” averted “a potentially Islamist-motivated attack.”
Christmas markets have become targets ever since 2016, when a failed Tunisian asylum seeker drove a truck into a Berlin Christmas market, killing twelve people and injuring 56.
In last year’s Magdeburg attack, more than 300 people were injured in addition to the six people killed, according to DW.
Fox News noted that Germany has beefed up security for the popular markets, citing a 43 percent increase in security spending on such events.
“The requirements have become increasingly stringent,” David Russ, head of production at Berlin’s Gendarmenmarkt, said.
Some officials said the events may have run their course in a world of potential threats.
If a bill were introduced to ban Islam, would you support it?
“The real question is why European governments are tolerating a situation where they must deploy extraordinary security just so people can safely celebrate a tradition that has been central to European life for centuries,” Alan Mendoza, executive director of the Henry Jackson Society, said.
“They’re responding to the threat, but they’re not pushing back against the radical extremists causing it. Why are Europeans forced to navigate layers of security instead of authorities making life difficult for the people who are spreading hatred and posing the threat?” he said.
“Europe needs an aggressive strategy that targets the radicals — imprisoning them, deporting them if they’re not citizens — because you can’t secure your way out of this forever,” Mendoza said.
“Every year the security will increase unless the root causes are addressed. Europeans are increasingly fed up with what’s happening to their societies, and if current leaders won’t deliver transformative change, voters will eventually choose leaders who will,” he said.
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