Context
Angela Merkel’s administration has been facing pressure after the killings of German Islamists in Pakistan’s Waziristan tribal area through US drone attacks. The deadly assault in October 2010 proved to be a turning point in the collaboration between US and German intelligence agencies. Due to legal and humanitarian concerns, Berlin responded by limiting the amount of information that the German intelligence can pass on to its American counterpart. Germany’s Interior Ministry has issued more restrictive instructions and advised its intelligence agencies not to provide the Americans with information that would allow them to find out the location of German nationals.
