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A suspected gunwoman is on the loose in Cologne, sparking a mass police operation.

Armed officers descended on an employment office in the German city today after witnesses reported seeing a woman with a weapon inside it.

Dozens of gun-wielding cops are currently searching the building and have ordered people to stay indoors, according to local media.

All employees have been ordered to stay inside their offices, and a search operation is underway, police told the Express newspaper.

German press reports four people have been arrested, but it is not known if the alleged armed woman is one of them.

Police tweeted today: 'Police operation at job centre in Luxemburger Street due to threatening behaviour."

They added that earlier information regarding a bomb threat was 'wrong'.

A force spokeswoman told Bild: "The situation is still very confusing. The area was cordoned off and is being searched."

The police operation follows a spate of attacks in Germany.

Yesterday, an explosion rocked an office for migration in Zirndorf, near Nuremberg, after a suitcase packed with aerosols was reportedly detonated.

Terrified witnesses reported hearing a 'loud bang', before discovering the burning remnants of the suitcase lying in an allotment garden.

And on Sunday, an ISIS suicide bomber injured more than a dozen people when he blew himself up outside a music festival in Ansbach.

The bomber, named as Mohammad Daleel, killed himself when he detonated an explosive device near a bar on Sunday evening.

The attack came days after a German-Iranian teenager shot dead nine people and injured 27 others in a horrific massacre at a shopping centre in Munich.

This story is developing.