German police announced on Sunday the arrest of three Islamists suspected of involvement in a plan to attack a cathedral in Cologne on New Year’s Eve with a “car”, reports France Presse, citing Agerpres.

The first arrest in the same case took place earlier. The suspects are part of “Islamist groups of people” who are “currently more active than usual,” regional interior minister Herbert Reul said.

A police officer in Cologne, in turn, talked about a “network of people from Central Asia.” German authorities say the terrorists planned to carry out the attack using a car, without specifying what mode of operation they had in mind.

The arrest shortly before Christmas near Cologne of a Tajik national suspected of planning an attack on a cathedral led investigators to an investigation that led to the arrest of other Islamists suspected of involvement in the terrorist attack.

Germany has been on high alert for several weeks

Meanwhile, the Austrian police reported the arrest of three suspects in Vienna.

According to German media, the members of the network to which they all belong are Tajiks working for the Islamic State-Khorasan (EI-K), an affiliate of the Islamic State group that is active, especially in Afghanistan, and the plan of this network was to attack religious buildings during the end-of-year holidays in European cities such as Vienna, Cologne or Madrid.

German police increased security around religious buildings on New Year’s Eve. For several weeks, Germany has been on high alert in the face of the risk of Islamist attacks in the context of the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.