BERLIN — German authorities have arrested five men suspected of involvement in a plot to carry out a vehicle attack at a Christmas market in the southern state of Bavaria, prosecutors said.

The suspects — three Moroccan nationals, an Egyptian and a Syrian — were detained on Friday amid suspicions of an Islamist motive.

Prosecutors said a 56-year-old Egyptian man is alleged to have called for a vehicle attack with the aim of killing or injuring as many people as possible, while the three Moroccan men allegedly agreed to carry out the attack.

The Syrian suspect, a 37-year-old, is accused of encouraging the others in their decision to commit the crime, authorities said.

Officials did not specify when the planned attack was to take place or which market was targeted, but said investigators believe it involved a Christmas market in the Dingolfing-Landau area, northeast of Munich.

Police said the Moroccan suspects, aged 30, 28 and 22, were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder. All five appeared before a magistrate on Saturday and remain in custody.

Bavaria’s Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said close cooperation between security services helped prevent what he described as a potentially Islamist-motivated attack.

Germany has been on heightened alert following past attacks on Christmas markets, including a deadly vehicle attack in Magdeburg last December that killed six people.

Security measures at festive markets across the country have been tightened in recent years, particularly after a 2016 attack in Berlin in which a truck was driven into a Christmas market crowd, killing 12 people. — Agencies