Germany says probing US drone strike deaths

BERLIN (AFP) Germany said Tuesday it had no information on five German radicals who according to Pakistani security sources were killed in a US drone attack in the countrys lawless tribal belt. Currently we have no information but we are investigating, a spokeswoman for the foreign ministry in Berlin told AFP.The missile attack took late on Monday in the North Waziristan tribal district bordering Afghanistan. Five German rebels of Turkish origin and three local militants were killed in the strike, a Pakistani security official said. According to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitutions annual report in June, there are 29 extremist organisations in Germany, with 36,000 members at the end of 2009 - 1,500 more than the year before. Some 200 Germans or foreigners living in Germany have spent time in Pakistan with the intention of receiving paramilitary training from militant groups, the agency said. Konrad Freiberg, the head of police union GdP, said on Tuesday that there were more than 100 dangerous Islamists in Germany. Close to 40 men, who have undergone explosives training in camps abroad, are back living in Germany, Freiberg told the Passauer Neue Presse daily. Germany, which opposed the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq but has more than 4,750 troops in Afghanistan under NATO command, has beefed up security and surveillance in response to the threat of militant attacks. Germanys interior minister said that Berlin was well aware that the country was in the sights of terrorists but that there were no concrete indications of an attack, warning against what he called alarmism.

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