Germany registered 1.1 million asylum seekers in 2015, the interior ministry said on Wednesday, with Syrians fleeing a brutal civil war making up almost 40 percent of arrivals.

The number of Syrians seeking refuge in Europe's biggest economy hit 428,468 during the year, with Afghans the second-biggest group at 154,046 applicants.

German police Wednesday gave the all-clear on a suspicious mail package that had arrived at Angela Merkel's chancellery building after detecting no explosives inside.

Police had closed off the front entrance from 0730 GMT and sent explosives experts to check the package in a cordoned-off area in the snow outside, but reopened the area around 0945 GMT, said a federal police spokesman.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel came under mounting pressure Wednesday for her welcoming stance toward migrants, which opponents have linked to a shocking rash of apparently coordinated sex attacks in Cologne on New Year's Eve.

Police in the western city told AFP they have received more than 100 complaints by women reporting assaults ranging from groping to at least one reported rape, allegedly committed in a large crowd of revelers during year-end festivities outside the city's main train station and its famed Gothic cathedral.

German police Friday lifted an alert of an imminent attack in Munich, hours after evacuating two key train stations over fears jihadists were planning a New Year suicide bomb assault.

Officials had said they were tipped off about a plot by the Islamic State group to strike at the southern German city shortly before midnight as Europe prepared to ring in the New Year in an atmosphere of unprecedented security.

Germany will reinstate individual interviews for Syrian asylum seekers from Friday, the interior ministry said, essentially tightening an official procedure that had been relaxed for citizens of the war-torn country.

In a bid to swiftly process a million migrants who have arrived in Germany this year alone, Berlin had earlier simplified the asylum seeking procedure for those from war-torn countries like Syria and Iraq.

Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka accused Germany of touching off a wave of illegal immigration by opening its borders to refugees, in a newspaper interview Wednesday.

Sobotka told Germany's daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung that countries like his were paying the price for Berlin's decision in September and said Prague would continue to resist pressure to take in more asylum seekers.

German authorities Thursday raided, shuttered and banned a Muslim association and mosque they accused of supporting the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria and Iraq.

Police in the southwestern city of Stuttgart searched the site and delivered a notice that the center had been disbanded and its property confiscated, said the interior minister of Baden-Wurttemberg state, Reinhold Gall.

Germany's military staged its first aerial refueling mission of allied fighter jets targeting Syria's Islamic State jihadist group, the armed forces said Wednesday.

The A310 MRTT refueled two combat aircraft Tuesday before returning from its five-hour mission shortly after midnight to the southern Turkey military base at Incirlik, said a Bundeswehr spokesman, without identifying the other planes involved.

German police Tuesday arrested one of the country's most prominent Islamist preachers on charges of supporting a "terrorist group" fighting in Syria.

The man, German citizen Sven Lau, 35, made headlines last year by organizing a vigilante "Sharia Police" group that patrolled German streets seeking to enforce Islamic law.

Poland's foreign minister on Tuesday accused Germany of putting Russia's interests above the security of eastern Europe, saying Berlin had neglected to show solidarity with its neighbors.

Retorting sharply to accusations against Warsaw over its refusal to shoulder a bigger share of refugees streaming into Europe, Witold Waszczykowski instead questioned Germany's stance on eastern Europe.