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ISIS Plot Tip-Off Triggered New Year's Eve Terror Scare in Munich

German officials received a "very concrete" tip that ISIS militants from Iraq and Syria were planning a New Year's Eve attack in Munich.
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Munich's main station was evacuated just before New Year after authorities received a "very concrete" tip that ISIS militants from Iraq and Syria were planning an attack at midnight, officials said Friday.

Intelligence reports warned that between five and seven assailants planned to blow themselves up at locations across the southern city, including two train stations, Joachim Herrmann, interior minister for Germany's Bavaria region, told the press conference Friday according to The Associated Press.

Police in the southern German city said they had been unable to find the suspects and were unsure if they were even in the country.

"It was, in my opinion, the correct decision in light of the these concrete warnings — a concrete location and concrete time," Herrmann said.

About 550 emergency personnel were on the streets and the Munich Hauptbahnhof and Pasing train stations were evacuated after the tip-off from the foreign security service, which was not identified.

It came on a night of beefed-up security at celebrations around the world and hours after a Muslim convert was arrested in Rochester, New York, on suspicion of plotting a New Year's Eve machete attack in the name of ISIS at a local restaurant.

Several high-profile attacks claimed by the Islamist militants and other groups in 2015 had put cities on edge.

Elsewhere, aside from a large fire at a luxury hotel in Dubai, 2016 was rung in without major incident.

Some 6,000 police officers — many of them carrying specialist equipment — guarded an estimated one million revelers who celebrated in New York's Times Square. In Las Vegas, nearly 1,000 uniformed officers and an undisclosed number of undercover officers lined the Strip.

Across the Pond, 3,000 law enforcement officials patrolled the streets of London — including an increased number carrying guns, which is not the norm in the U.K.

France, which was rocked by the Nov. 13 attacks that killed 130 people, saw 60,000 police deployed across the country. President Francois Hollande used his New Year's Eve speech to warn the terrorist threat was still at its "highest level," according to the AP.

In Brussels, where a 10th suspect was charged with involvement into the Paris attacks this week, officials decided to cancel the fireworks celebration for fears of an attack.

Tens of thousands of people celebrated the new year at an intersection in Bangkok, where a pipe bomb killed 20 people just six months ago. Up to 5,000 police officers were in the area, including bomb-disposal teams who swept the vicinity beforehand, the AP reported.

Elsewhere, security was also tighter this year. In Tokyo, posters in subways and other public places warned revelers to keep their eyes peeled for suspicious packages and activities. Armed police stood guard in Beijing's commercial districts.