Two arrested in Germany over mall attack plot: police

German authorities have arrested two brothers on suspicion of planning an attack on one of the country's biggest shopping centres, in the western city of Oberhausen, police said Friday.

The two men, aged 28 and 31, are originally from Kosovo, police said, four days after a jihadist drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin killing 12 people.

Investigators were trying to establish what stage of preparation the plot was at and whether others were involved, police in the nearby city of Essen said in a statement.

Tipped off by the intelligence services, police were sent to the shopping mall and a nearby Christmas market late Thursday, they said.

The mall that was targeted, CentrO, is one of the largest in Germany with around 250 shops that are usually packed in the run-up to Christmas.

It is located in an old steelworks in Oberhausen in the former industrial heartland of the Ruhr valley.

Police are still hunting for the perpetrator of Monday's attack on one of Berlin's most popular Christmas markets, believed to be a 24-year-old Tunisian.

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the assault -- their deadliest yet carried out on German soil.