BERLIN (Reuters) - Police have arrested a German man who has admitted planning to lure police or soldiers into a trap and kill them with a home-made bomb, prosecutors and police said on Thursday.

Prosecutors said chemicals that could be used to make explosive devices were found during a search of his home in the town of Northeim in central Germany.

The 26-year-old is believed to be a member of a group of Salafists, ultra-conservative Islamists, they said. In a statement, prosecutors and police called the arrest “a big success in the fight against terrorism”.

German authorities are on high alert after a failed Tunisian asylum-seeker plowed a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin on Dec. 19, killing 12 people.

This month police carried out a series of raids on properties in the university town of Goettingen - not far from Northeim - and arrested two men suspected of planning an imminent Islamist attack.