World

Munich stations cleared after Isis suicide attack threat

German special police stand in front of Munich's main train station after police warned of 'imminent threat' of terror attack and ordered two train stations to be cleared. Picture by (Sven Hoppe, dpa via Associated Press 
German special police stand in front of Munich's main train station after police warned of 'imminent threat' of terror attack and ordered two train stations to be cleared. Picture by (Sven Hoppe, dpa via Associated Press  German special police stand in front of Munich's main train station after police warned of 'imminent threat' of terror attack and ordered two train stations to be cleared. Picture by (Sven Hoppe, dpa via Associated Press 

MUNICH has been put on a terror alert after police warned of a "serious, imminent threat" of a New Year's Eve terror attack by Islamic State (IS) suicide bombers.

People were told to stay away from the main railway station and a second station in the city's Pasing district. The city's train stations have reopened and trains are running but a terror warning about Islamic State extremists intending to blow themselves up in the city remains in place.

Bavaria's interior minister Joachim Herrmann said authorities had received information that the terror group was behind the threat.

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, German news agency dpa reported.

Mr Andrae said so far there had not been any arrests.

Police spokesman Werner Kraus said: "After evaluating the situation, we started evacuating the train stations and also asked partygoers to stay away from big crowds outside."

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 2016 with fireworks.

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

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

A few days after the Paris attack, a football stadium in Hannover, 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.