German authorities arrested five people in the Dingolfing area (Southern Germany) on Saturday over suspicion of planning to attack a Christmas market, the Munich public prosecutor reported.
The attack was allegedly religiously motivated, according to the police reports, with the five suspects being originally from Egypt, Syria, and Morocco.
The German outlet DW reported that the Egyptian suspect was 56 years old, the Syrian was 37 years old, and the Moroccans were 22, 28, and 30, respectively.
The report also said that the suspects were planning to attack the Christmas market with a car, while there were no mentions of weapons confiscated by the authorities.
The German newspaper Bild reported that the Egyptian suspect had presented his idea for the Christmas market attack while at a mosque in the Dingolfing-Landau area.
Bild also cited the Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann, who congratulated the "excellent cooperation of our security authorities to stop a possible Islamist-motivated attack in Bavaria."
Previous Christmas market attack in Germany
Last year, a similar attack took place in the German city of Magdeburg on December 20, where a man drove his car into a crowd at a Christmas market, killing six people and leaving over 300 others injured.
The 50-year-old man from Saudi Arabia was reportedly not motivated by Islamic extremism, while Saudi authorities later revealed that they had shared information about a possible attack at the market.
A Reuters report from that day said that the attacker "not fit into any previous categorisation," according to the German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser.