Somali-born activist and former supermodel Waris Dirie on Wednesday opens a center in Germany to treat victims of female genital mutilation, which she was subjected to as a child.

About 8,000 young girls are circumcised every day in Africa and the Middle East, and the Desert Flower Medical Center, located in a Berlin hospital, will offer reconstructive surgery and psychological help to those among the 50,000 girls and women in Germany who need it.

More than 100 Syrian refugees left Lebanon for Germany on Wednesday under the European country's relocation program for up to 5,000 displaced, the state-run National News Agency reported.

NNA said 107 refugees traveled from Rafik Hariri International Airport with the assistance of the German Embassy.

Germany's relocation program for Syrian refugees is getting under way with 107 people gaining temporary new homes.

U.N. refugee agency spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said Tuesday the refugees — including survivors of torture and others with special needs mainly those with untreated medical conditions — are due to leave Lebanon on Wednesday headed for Hannover under the temporary program announced by Germany in March for up to 5,000 Syrian refugees.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel faced a lashing Monday, two weeks before elections, for a "foolhardy zigzag" response to a U.S. drive to punish the Syrian regime for an alleged chemical attack.

Fierce opposition fire forced Merkel onto the defensive after Germany initially snubbed a Washington-backed call by 11 G20 members for a "strong" response Friday, only to then back it a day later.

A German rapper who converted to Islam and joined jihadist rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar Assad has been injured in an air strike, a jihadist group said on Monday.

The jihadist, formerly known as Deso Dogg, was hiding at an anti-regime fighter's house that "was hit by an air strike and helicopter shelling", said a statement posted on Facebook by a group that identified itself as the People of Abraham.

Germany's intelligence services cooperated with the U.S. CIA for years on a database of suspected jihadists and their supporters in Germany, the weekly Der Spiegel reported on Sunday.

Under the codename "Project 6" or "P6", Germany's BND and Verfassungschutz intelligence services and the CIA monitored and collected data on Islamists and suspected terrorists in Germany, the magazine said, without revealing its sources.

Thousands took to the streets in Berlin Saturday in protests against Internet surveillance activities by the U.S. National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies, and the German government's perceived lax reaction to them.

Organizers, among them the opposition Greens, The Left and Pirates parties, said 20,000 people turned out. Police would not confirm the figure, saying only their "tally differs from that of the organizers".

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday hailed as "invaluable" the united European Union position urging "a strong response" to a deadly chemical weapons attack blamed on Syria's regime.

"The signal given by a united European position in the face of this abominable conflict is of invaluable importance," her spokesman Steffen Seibert said in a statement.

Germany urged the United Nations on Friday "to speed up" release of its much-awaited report on the suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria to help divided leaders determine a response in the coming weeks.

"My request is that we get as quickly as possible the results of the inspection team, that we have an independent statement by an independent neutral institution," said German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle on arriving in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius for informal talks with his 27 European Union counterparts.

Germany's trade surplus narrowed in July as exports weakened, data published by the federal statistics office Destatis showed on Friday.

In seasonally adjusted terms, Germany exported goods worth 90.3 billion euros ($118.6 billion) in July, down from 91.2 billion euros in June, Destatis calculated in a statement.