German gov`t unaware of CIA-ordered death squads in Hamburg

From: MNN

The German government claimed Monday it had no information about CIA-ordered death squads who tried reportedly to kill an alleged al-Qaeda financier, Mamoun Darkazanali in Hamburg. Berlin, Jan 4, IRNA -- Reacting to US news reports that killer teams of the notorious private security firm, Blackwater, were contracted by the CIA to murder Darkazanli, the spokesperson of the chancellery as well as other spokesmen of the relevant ministries told the press in Berlin they were unaware of such an assassination program. American media reports cited a source familiar with the program as saying that the Darkazanli who is a German-Syrian national, had been on the CIA’s radar for years because of his alleged ties to three of the 9/11 hijackers and to operatives convicted of the 1998 bombings of US embassies in East Africa. The CIA team supposedly went in “dark,” meaning they did not notify their own station—much less the German government—of their presence. They then followed Darkazanli in Hamburg for weeks and worked through the logistics of how and where they would take him down. Hamburg was reportedly a main logistical base for the 9/11 terrorists. In the case of Darkazanli, the source insists, the authorities in Washington chose not to pull the trigger. Shortly after 9/11, then-US president George W. Bush had issued a “lethal finding,” giving the CIA the go-ahead to kill or capture al-Qaeda members. The New York Times reported in August that the CIA hired Blackwater contractors for a secret program to track and assassinate senior al Qaeda figures. The program cost millions of dollars, the paper said.