Many of US drone strikes for targeted killing in places like Pakistan and Afghanistan are planned and carried out from US military bases in Germany as it has become a crucial strategic hub for anti-terrorism operations, media reports said.
The US has been organising kidnapping and torture of suspected terrorists in other countries from Germany and American security forces used German airports to detain them, a joint-report by German TV channel NDR and the Munich daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung said.
Germany’s collusion with US anti-terror operations started in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, it said.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) organised the planning and construction of top secret rendition and torture centres abroad from the US command centre in Stuttgart and an air base in Ramstein, it claimed.
US intelligence services also sifted through the records of asylum-seekers in Germany and collected information which could provide clues to identify possible targets for drone attacks, the report said.
Investigations showed that the drone strikes in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Middle East and Africa are organised from Stuttgart and from the US military base in Ramstein.
The US embassy in Berlin, however, dismissed the reports as speculations. The United States in principle will not involve in kidnapping or torture nor will it tolerate or support if any other country resorts to such illegal measures, the embassy said in a statement.
Germany’s opposition parties expressed their outrage over the allegations and demanded an explanation from the government.
Green party’s Hans-Christian Stroebele, who met NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden in Moscow two weeks ago, said if the allegations turned out to be true, then it means that the government has lied before a parliamentary inquiry committee.
Left Party MP Jan van Aken criticised Germany’s alleged support for the US drone strikes. “Such drone strikes are executions without a charge or a verdict and they are illegal,” he said.
