From: Tayfun Eren [tayfuneren@live.com.au]

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DRONE aircraft operated by the CIA have killed several militants with German citizenship in the mountains of Pakistan.

The missile strikes were part of an escalating barrage of attacks by the CIA amid tension in European capitals over the possibility that al-Qaeda agents based in Pakistan and North Africa might be planning terrorist attacks in Europe.

A small stream of German Muslims have travelled to Pakistan’s mountainous tribal areas in recent years, part of what some European counterterrorism officials see as al-Qaeda’s effort to recruit young Westerners who might be able to return to Europe or the US to carry out attacks.

It was unclear whether the drone strikes were related to the suspected terrorist plots in Europe.

News organisations in Pakistan reported that missiles struck a mosque in Mir Ali, a town in North Waziristan, the region where most of the drone strikes have occurred this year.

US officials offered few details about the strikes and there were conflicting reports about the number of German militants killed in the attacks. A Pakistani official said 10 to 12 people were killed, at least four of them German.

Usually, it takes the CIA several days to analyse communication intercepts and other information to confirm the identities of those killed in air strikes.

On Sunday, the US State Department issued a vague travel alert to Americans in Europe, warning of threats to ”tourist infrastructure” but not mentioning any specific countries that might be at risk. Over the past week, US officials have said they were gathering intelligence about multiple plots that could involve attacks in France, Germany and Britain like those two years ago in Mumbai, India.

Germany’s top security official, Thomas de Maiziere, played down concern that al-Qaeda was plotting attacks against some of Berlin’s landmarks. ”There is no concrete indication of impending attacks,” he said.

Security in Berlin has increased around government ministry buildings, political parties’ headquarters, the airport and major railway stations.

In recent years, US and European intelligence officials have grown concerned about groups of young men from Germany and Britain who have been training in militant camps in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

German security officials think this trend has been inspired in part by a proliferation of radical German-language videos on the internet.

Officials have said the number of Germans travelling to Pakistan is hard to determine because of the route that is taken: leaving the country by car to elude airport security and then going to Turkey and Iran, where smugglers take them to Pakistan.

The CIA carried out 21 drone strikes in September, the most in one month, and has already carried out several strikes this month. US officials said the escalation was the result of two factors: an attempt to disrupt militant networks that attacked troops in Afghanistan, and efforts to strike militant cells in Pakistan that might be co-ordinating terrorist plots in Europe.

NEW YORK TIMES