CV NEWS FEED // Police in Cologne, Germany continue to heavily guard Cologne Cathedral after detaining five suspects connected with an alleged Islamist plot to bomb the Catholic landmark on New Year’s Eve.
Although the holiday passed without a violent incident, the police will maintain a strong presence at the cathedral out of caution, according to the news site dpa international.
A Cologne police spokesman said on January 1 that “there will continue to be security checks at the cathedral… How long this measure will be maintained is currently under review.”
Police on Tuesday, December 26 arrested a 30-year-old Tajik man connected to an alleged plot by Islamic extremists to bomb the Catholic cathedral.
“Police had received information about a planned militant attack on Cologne Cathedral shortly before Christmas,” according to AP News:
All of the detained suspects allegedly belong to a larger Islamic extremist network that included people across Germany and in other European countries, according to Cologne police chief Johannes Hermanns, German news agency dpa reported.
Local media outlets reported that “the attack was supposed to have been carried out with a car loaded with explosives.”
Police implemented heavy security for the cathedral upon receiving the information. Mass attendees had to undergo security checks with police dogs, and approximately 1,000 police officers were reportedly present around the cathedral on New Year’s Eve.
Police arrested three more suspects on the morning of December 31 and another suspect on Sunday night, according to AP News.
During a press conference on December 31, Cologne police said they searched the cathedral’s underground parking garage exits and entrances for suspicious activity, and that explosives-detection dogs searched the garage, but found nothing.
North Rhine-Westphalia’s Interior Minister Herbert Reul said Cologne Cathedral “was a prime target” of the extremists’ and the recent arrests were a “success, for which I would like to thank the investigators.”
In a separate article, AP News reported that on December 5 the European Union’s Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson “warned that Europe faces a ‘huge risk of terrorist attacks’ over the Christmas holidays due to fallout from the war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.”
