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Merkel under pressure over alleged role in target killing of Taliban

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Berlin, Dec 12, IRNA -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel is facing pressure after news reports revealed that the chancellery and defense ministry had allegedly authorized the target killing of Taliban leaders during the deadly air strike on two fuel tankers in Kunduz.

The federal chancellery had reportedly approved stronger military measures against

Taliban, including target killing, ahead of the September 4 German-ordered air attack on two Taliban-hijacked fuel tankers which had become stuck in a river bed.

German defense ministry officially had initially claimed the objective of the bombing mission which killed 142 people, was to prevent the Taliban from using the fuel trucks in a suicide mission against German troops deployed in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, a report released by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) stressed that goal of the air strike was to target alleged Taliban leaders near the fuel tankers.

According to media reports, Germany's top-secret KSK elite anti-terror troopers whose main mission is to hunt Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgents in Afghanistan, were also involved in the airstrike.

The daily Bild newspaper cited German military circles as saying that members of an elite German taskforce, codenamed 'Taskforce 47', may have consulted with the German general who ordered the much-criticized airstrike near the northern Afghan city of Kunduz.

The parliamentary defense committee is to meet on Wednesday to look into the scandal which has rocked Germany's political scene.

Franz Josef Jung, former defense minister and the military's top officer at the time of the airstrike, resigned from the government in November when it emerged that information about civilian victims may have been withheld up from the public.

A member of the parliamentary defense committee of the opposition Green party, Omid Nouripour has made clear that Merkel and other senior chancellery, defense ministry and military officials could be summoned to the hearing to testify in the Kunduz scandal.

OT**1416

End News / IRNA / News Code 837791