Arrests made in Germany over 'Cologne cathedral attack plot': Police

German police on Sunday (Dec 31) arrested three people over allegedly plotting to attackCologne's iconic cathedral on New Year's Eve.

The police released a statement saying that the suspects arrested had planned to attack the cathedral via a car.

The "alleged means of attack" is a car, said police in the western city, adding that security measures have been ramped up around the area.

The three suspects are believed to be connected to a Tajik who was arrested on Christmas Eve, Cologne police chief Johannes Hermann said.

The Tajik was detained on the day when Austria announced the arrests of another three suspects in Vienna.

As per Bild daily reports, all the four arrested were Tajiks who had allegedly planned on carrying out the attacks for Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K), an IS offshoot in Afghanistan.

"Islamist people and groups" are "more active than ever at the moment," said warned Herbert Reul, interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia state, where Cologne is located.

The investigations that were conducted after the Tajik's arrest foundthat there was a plot to deploy a car as a means of attack, but "in which way is not known to us," said Frank Wissbaum of Cologne police.

Police said that the officers had deployed sniffer dogs to search the underground parking of the iconic cathedral for explosives, however, they haven't yet come across anything suspicious.

Wissbaum said that protective measures were ramped up with nearly 1,000 police officers deployed since this afternoon to "protect the cathedral and the population in Cologne city centre".

Europe on high alert

Countries have been ramping up security measures to ensure safe New Year celebrations amid heightened terror threats linked to the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Germany had been on high alert over possible Islamist attacks after the country's domestic intelligence chief issued a warning in late November this year that the risk of such assaults is "real and higher than it has been for a long time" because of the Israel-Hamas war.

France had earlier released a statement saying that it would deploy close to 90,000 police officers across the country, with 6,000 of them in Paris alone, for the weekend's New Yearcelebrations due to the 'very high' terrorist threat.

"I have called for an extremely high turnout of police and security forces given the context of the very high terrorist threat due to, clearly, what is happening in Israel and in Palestine," Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Friday (Dec 29).

(With inputs from agencies)