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epa03927010 A photo dated 21 October 2011 showing German Chancellor Angela Merkel looking at her cell phone during a parliamentary debate at the Bundestag in Berlin, Germany. US spying agencies have been monitoring German Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone since 2002, German Der Spiegel magazine reported on 26 October 2013. It added that US President Barack Obama told the German leader that he would have stopped the eavesdropping had he known about it. A separate report from German newspaper Bild am Sonntag 27 October 2013 however reported Obama had known of the spying on Merkel since at least 2010 when National Security Agency (NSA) chief Keith Alexander personally informed him of the operation. An unnamed NSA official told the newspaper that Obama did not stop the surveillance, instead allowing it to continue. Revelations that Merkel's phone was being tracked by the NSA have sparked an outcry in Germany, and prompted the government to summon the US ambassador. German intelligence officials were to travel to Washington to meet with their US counterparts in the coming weeks, the governments said. EPA/TIM BRAKEMEIER