Reuters | Jan 3, 2010

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq will help victims of the 2007 shooting of civilians in Baghdad to file a U.S. lawsuit against employees of security firm Blackwater, an incident that turned a spotlight on the United States’ use of private contractors in war zones.

Last week, a U.S. judge threw out charges against five guards accused of killing 14 Iraqi civilians at a Baghdad traffic circle, saying the defendants’ constitutional rights had been violated.

Iraq called that decision “unacceptable and unjust” and, as well as supporting a lawsuit brought by Iraqis wounded in the shooting and families of those killed, it will ask the U.S. Justice Department to review the criminal case, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said on Sunday.

“The government will facilitate a lawsuit from Iraqi citizens to sue the guards and the company in a U.S. court,” he said.

The guards from Blackwater Worldwide, now known as Xe Services, say they shot across a crowded intersection in self-defense after hearing an explosion and gunfire.

But an Iraqi whose young son was killed in the incident said they indiscriminately fired at cars.

The shooting strained relations between Washington and Baghdad and became a symbol for many Iraqis of foreigners’ disregard for their lives.

Dabbagh said the court had “rejected the case on form, and not on its merits.”

Following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, private guards protecting U.S. personnel were given immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts. That ended with a bilateral agreement that took effect last year.

The five guards were charged in a U.S. federal court with 14 counts of manslaughter, 20 of attempting to commit manslaughter and one weapons violation. A sixth Blackwater guard pleaded guilty to charges of voluntary manslaughter and attempting to commit manslaughter, and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.

Dabbagh said Iraq was conducting an investigation into whether current or former Blackwater employees were still operating in the country, including with other firms.

He said Iraq did not want them on its soil, but did not say whether they would be expelled.

“We do not want any member of this company, which committed more than one crime in Iraq, to work in Iraq.”

In a speech to Iraq’s parliament on Sunday, lawmaker Omar al-Jubouri suggested a way the government could retaliate for the decision of the U.S. courts.

“Ask the Iraqi courts to release all the (Iraqi) defendants … sentenced to death for killing Americans in Iraq, as an act of reciprocity with the U.S. judicial system,” he said.

(Reporting by Mohammed Abbas; writing by Missy Ryan; editing by Angus MacSwan)

BBC | Jan 1, 2010

Iraq has criticised a US judge’s dismissal of all charges against guards from US security firm Blackwater over the killing of 17 Iraqis in 2007.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said an Iraqi investigation showed the men had committed a “serious crime” and Baghdad would seek to prosecute them.

The five had all pleaded not guilty to manslaughter. A sixth guard admitted killing at least one Iraqi.

The judge dismissed the charges against the guards over procedural errors.

District Judge Ricardo Urbina said the US justice department had used evidence prosecutors were not supposed to have.

Mr al-Dabbagh said the Iraqi government “regrets and is disappointed by the US court’s decision”.

“Inquiries carried out by the Iraqi government clearly confirm that the Blackwater guards committed a crime and used weapons when there was no threat necessitating the use of force,” he said.

He said Iraq would “act forcefully and decisively to prosecute the Blackwater criminals”.

The Iraqi human rights minister, Wejdan Mikhail, said she was “astonished” by the US move.

“There was so much work done to prosecute these people and to take this case into court and I don’t understand why the judge took this decision,” the AFP news agency quoted her as saying.

The commander of US forces in Iraq, Gen Ray Odierno, said the court’s decision could create local resentment against other security firms operating in the country.

“Of course we’re upset when we believe that people might have caused a crime and they are not held accountable,” Reuters quoted him as saying.

The killings, which took place in Nisoor Square, Baghdad, strained Iraq’s relationship with the US and raised questions about US contractors operating in war zones.

A man whose son died in the incident said he was surprised to hear the guards had been acquitted.

“But what can we do? We cannot do anything with the US government and their law,” he told Reuters.

Lawyers for the five guards say they were acting in self-defence, but witnesses and family members of those killed maintain that the shooting on 16 September 2007 was unprovoked.

A civil case against Blackwater brought by Iraqis – including relatives of some of the Nisoor Square victims – is still before a Virginia court.

It alleges that Blackwater employees engaged in indiscriminate killings.

CP | Jan 1, 2010

By Rebecca Santana

BAGHDAD — Iraqis seeking justice for 17 people shot dead at a Baghdad intersection responded with bitterness and outrage Friday at a U.S. judge’s decision to throw out a case against a Blackwater security team accused in the killings.

The Iraqi government vowed to pursue the case, which became a source of contention between the U.S. and the Iraqi government. Many Iraqis also held up the judge’s decision as proof of what they’d long believed: U.S. security contractors were above the law.

“There is no justice,” said Bura Sadoun Ismael, who was wounded by two bullets and shrapnel during the shooting. “I expected the American court would side with the Blackwater security guards who committed a massacre in Nisoor Square.”

What happened on Nisoor Square on Sept. 16, 2007, raised Iraqi concerns about their sovereignty because Iraqi officials were powerless to do anything to the Blackwater employees who had immunity from local prosecution. The shootings also highlighted the degree to which the U.S. relied on private contractors during the Iraq conflict.

Blackwater had been hired by the State Department to protect U.S. diplomats in Iraq. The guards said they were ambushed at a busy intersection in western Baghdad, but U.S. prosecutors and many Iraqis said the Blackwater guards let loose an unprovoked attack on civilians using machine-guns and grenades.

“Investigations conducted by specialized Iraqi authorities confirmed unequivocally that the guards of Blackwater committed the crime of murder and broke the rules by using arms without the existence of any threat obliging them to use force,” Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement Friday.

He did not elaborate on what steps the government planned to take to pursue the case.

The shootings led the Iraqi government to strip the North Carolina-based company of its license to work in the country, and Blackwater replaced its management and changed its name to Xe Services.

Five guards from the company were charged in the case with manslaughter and weapons violations. The charges carried mandatory 30-year prison terms, but a federal judge Friday dismissed all the charges.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina cited repeated government missteps in the investigation, saying that prosecutors built their case on sworn statements that the guards had given with the idea that they would be immune from prosecution.

That explanation held little sway with Iraqis outraged over the case.

Dr. Haitham Ahmed’s wife and son were both killed in their car during the shooting.

“The rights of our victims and the rights of the innocent people should not be wasted,” he said.

Iraqis have followed the case closely and said the judge’s decision demonstrated that the Americans were considered above the law.

“I was not astonished by the verdict because the trial was unreal. They are using double standards and talking about human rights, but they are the first to violate these rights. They are killing innocents deliberately,” said Ahmed Jassim, a civil engineer in the southern city of Najaf.

Dozens of Iraqis have filed a separate lawsuit alleging that Blackwater employees engaged in indiscriminate killings and beatings. That civil case was not affected by Urbina’s decision and is still before a Virginia court.

Mohammed al-Kinani, whose son was killed, said he had been invited once to the U.S. by the Justice Department as a witness but said he went two more times after that to follow the case.

“I will not despair,” he said.

Gen. Ray Odierno, the commanding general in Iraq, said he understood that people would be upset with the decision.

“Of course people are not going to like it, because they believe that these individuals conducted some violence and should be punished for it, but the bottom line is, using the rule of law, the evidence is not there,” he said. “I worry about it because clearly there were innocent people killed in this attack.”

Of all the private security companies that mushroomed in Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion, Blackwater was the most well-known and vilified.

Their employees were at the centre of what is considered one of the key moments of the war. A vehicle with four Blackwater employees driving through the western city of Fallujah, a centre of the Sunni insurgency, was hit by gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades in March 2004. Their charred, mutilated bodies were dragged through the streets and hung from a bridge over the Euphrates river.

The bloody incident was one of the key reasons the U.S. military attacked Fallujah in April 2004.

Another Blackwater guard, Andrew Moonen, was accused by the family of a guard for an Iraqi vice-president of shooting and killing the guard without provocation on Christmas Eve of 2006 after Moonen got drunk at a party in the Green Zone and then got lost. Moonen’s lawyer has described the incident as self-defence.

An October 2007 report by a House of Representatives committee called Blackwater an out-of-control outfit indifferent to Iraqi civilian casualties. Blackwater chairman Erik Prince told the committee that the company acted appropriately at all times.

Were the incident to happen again today, the legal outcome might be much different. The U.S.-Iraqi security pact that took effect Jan. 1, 2009, lifted the immunity that foreign contractors had in Iraq. A British security contractor accused of shooting two colleagues is currently being held in Iraq and could be the first Westerner to face an Iraqi court since the immunity was lifted.

Associated Press Writers Katharine Houreld, Saad Abdul-Kadir and Bushra Juhi contributed to this report.

guardian.co.uk | Jan 1, 2010

by Martin Chulov

When a Blackwater convoy approached Baghdad’s fortified green zone just after midday on 16 September, 2007, the hundreds of Iraqi drivers inching through the choking traffic witnessed a familiar scene.

Iraqi guards waved through three armoured trucks towards a military lane spilling off Nissour Square in the central city. Any private vehicle that even tries to enter is often fired on.

Abdul Wahad Abdul-Kahad remembers grinding to a stop as non-Iraqi guards cleared a path for a second Blackwater convoy. A helicopter hovered overhead.

“It was about noon,” he recalled. ”I heard a bursts of fire enter the car in front of me. It caught fire and a lady and her son were killed. I tried to drive away down the wrong side of the road but they shot at me and hit me in the arm.”

There was screaming and blood all around as Iraqi police and soldiers tried to return fire on the Blackwater guards who had started the shooting.

“The shooting may have continued for 15 minutes,” Abdul-Kahad said. “It’s hard to be sure. I was crouched and bleeding in my car for an hour until Iraqi guards came to rescue me. I still haven’t recovered from what I went through.”

An Iraqi police officer who cleared a path for the first Blackwater crew to enter the square said the shooting had been unprovoked.

“The man in the third car fired three or four shots randomly,” the police officer, Salman, told his American lawyers who provided a videotape of his account to the public broadcaster NPR. He said the first shooter was “big, had a moustache and was white.”

Salman saw the car in front of Abdul Kahad catch fire. “Boom, boom, boom,” he said. “The car had started moving very slowly by itself because it was an automatic car. It was moving toward the square, and at this moment they started shooting the car with big machine guns. And then the car exploded.”

When the scene was cleared, 17 people were dead. Apart from two Iraqi security officers, all were civilians.

The shooting became a flashpoint for a city that had become as fatigued by the excesses of foreign companies as it had by the year’s incessant violence. Resentment boiled over at security company convoys that operated with impunity throughout the lawless streets.

After the shooting, Iraqis took to the airwaves in large numbers to complain about security companies, which they saw as a foreboding presence and, in some ways, a throwback to the Saddam days when the state-sanctioned gun-slingers could shoot at will.

As the violence grew throughout 2004-5, security details rarely hesitated before firing a burst from a machine gun at any car that even inadvertently strayed close. They operated outside the law. But even worse was a strong feeling that the companies operated without respect for Iraqi citizens.

For almost seven years, Iraqis had slammed their brakes at the hulking armoured convoys of security firms that terrified civilians. The most infamous name was Blackwater.

Soon after the fall of Baghdad, security companies arrived in droves seeking the lucrative contracts that were soon to flow in helping raise a state from the post-Saddam ruins.

Blackwater won the lead contract to defend key US government institutions, including the Baghdad Embassy. Its numbers grew rapidly, drawing largely on ex-US military special operations units. At $600 per day, it was fast, if not always easy, money for ex-soldiers used to one third of the salary, worse conditions and often higher risk.

A resentment quickly grew in the highly competitive, macho private security scene that Blackwater operatives were the proletarian guard, the rest were foot soldiers. Blackwater was soon the biggest private army in Iraq and could have laid a claim on being the biggest and most powerful private force anywhere in the world.

“They came and they went, as they should have,” said Rihab Abdul Karim, whose nephew was killed in Nissour Square. “They were arrogant with the power they had. They thought they answered to no-one. And with this verdict, maybe they were right.”

CNN | Dec 31, 2009

A woman passes a burnt-out car in the aftermath of the 2007 shootout in Baghdad, Iraq.

Washington (CNN) — A federal judge dismissed manslaughter charges Thursday against five Blackwater security guards in the 2007 deaths of Iraqi civilians in a Baghad square, finding that prosecutors wrongly used the men’s own statements against them.

The September 2007 shootout in Baghdad’s Nusoor Square left 17 Iraqis dead and two dozen wounded. The killings led Iraq’s government to slap limits on security contractors hired by Blackwater, now known as Xe, and other firms.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina found that the government’s case was built largely on “statements compelled under a threat of job loss in a subsequent criminal prosecution,” a violation of the Fifth Amendment rights of the five men charged.

“In their zeal to bring charges against the defendant in this case, the prosecutors and investigators aggressively sought out statements the defendants had been compelled to make to government investigators in the immediate aftermath of the shooting and in the subsequent investigation,” Urbina wrote in a 90-page decision.

Federal prosecutors “repeatedly disregarded the warnings of experienced, senior prosecutors assigned to the case” in doing so, he found.

Urbina also sharply criticized prosecutors and federal agents who developed the case, calling their explanations for using the guards’ statements “all too often contradictory, unbelievable and lacking in credibility.”

“In short, the government has utterly failed to prove that it made no impermissible use of the defendants’ statements or that such use was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt,” he wrote.

There was no immediate response to the decision from the Justice Department, which can appeal Thursday’s ruling or seek new indictments against the men.

The men were guarding a State Department convoy moving through western Baghdad when the shooting began. The company said its contractors came under attack, but Iraqi authorities called the gunfire unprovoked and indiscriminate.

Each of the now-former guards — Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard, Donald Ball and Nicholas Slatten — faced 14 counts of manslaughter, 20 counts of attempted manslaughter and one count of using a firearm in the commission of a violent crime.

Prosecutors requested that charges against Slatten be dropped in November, but Thursday’s ruling dismisses the counts against all five.

“We’re obviously pleased at the decision dismissing the entire indictment and are very happy that these courageous young men can begin the new year without this unfair cloud hanging over them,” said Slough’s lawyer, Mark Hulkower.

A sixth guard, Jeremy Ridgeway, pleaded guilty in 2008 to voluntary manslaughter and attempted manslaughter.

CNN | Dec 31, 2009

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) — Two of the seven CIA officers killed Wednesday in a suspected terrorist attack on a U.S. base in Afghanistan were contractors for Xe, a private security firm formerly known as Blackwater, a former intelligence official said Thursday.

A current intelligence official confirmed to CNN that the casualties included a mix of people — CIA staff and contractors. The CIA considers contractors to be officers.

The Taliban have claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s attack, which wounded six other people. A senior U.S. official said information suggested that a bomber walked into a gym facility at Forward Operating Base Chapman — in Khost Province, near the border of Pakistan — and detonated bombs in a suicide vest.

It is not known how the bomber got past security. In a posting on its Web site Thursday, the Taliban claimed the bomber was an Afghan National Army soldier.

A U.S. intelligence official on Thursday vowed that the United States would avenge the attack.

“This attack will be avenged through successful, aggressive counterterrorism operations,” the intelligence official vowed.

Former CIA official Robert Richer called it “the greatest loss of life for the Central Intelligence Agency since the Beirut Embassy bombing” in 1983, which killed eight agents.

Flags at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, flew at half-staff Thursday.

“These brave Americans were part of a long line of patriots who have made great sacrifices for their fellow citizens, and for our way of life,” President Obama said in a written statement Thursday.

“The United States would not be able to maintain the freedom and security that we cherish without decades of service from the dedicated men and women of the CIA.”

Richer, who retired from the agency in 2005 as the associate deputy director for operations, knew many of Wednesday’s victims personally. In a written statement Thursday, he called on the public to “remain mindful that our great country is served well by those in and out of uniform. That officers like those lost in this attack placed themselves in harm’s way, at a critical and dangerous crossroads in the war on terror.

“We should be thankful for the service and sacrifice of these fine Americans. They and their colleagues, who compose the very thin line of Agency officers working in the shadows at the very tip of the war on terror, are a national asset; an asset often misunderstood and under appreciated.”

CIA Director Leon Panetta said in a statement Thursday that “those who fell … were far from home and close to the enemy, doing the hard work that must be done to protect our country from terrorism.”

A U.S. military source noted that Chapman was originally a base for the Khost Provincial Construction Team, but the team left some time ago. A U.S. intelligence official would not discuss the specific mission of the base but acknowledged that it was a crucial CIA post and a “hub of activity.”

Authorities believe that the suicide bomber might have attacked just after a convoy was ending or beginning, which would account for the high number of casualties.

Eight Americans were originally believed to be killed in the bombing.

Blackwater ‘hired’ Pak’s intelligence, army officers: Khwaja

dnaindia.com | Dec 29, 2009

LAHORE: Controversial US private security firm Blackwater, accused of carrying out secret operations in Pakistan, has hired services of army officers and former employees of intelligence agencies of this country for “handsome” salaries, a retired ISI official has claimed.

Khalid Khwaja, who has been at the forefront in raising the issue of “missing persons” or people detained without charges by Pakistani security agencies, said that ex-intelligence personnel hired by Blackwater had been asked to “pick up people with alleged connections to Taliban or al-Qaeda.”

The Supreme Court “has directed the Pakistan government to produce some 1,000 or so missing persons. The Pakistani (intelligence) agencies have expressed inability to comply with the order (on the ground that they do) not have knowledge
about the missing persons,” he said.

“I have written to the prime minister and the Interior Minister to investigate the matter,” said Khwaja, a retired ISI official.

Blackwater, he claimed, has “hired the services of army officers and former employees of intelligence agencies of Pakistan for handsome salaries.”

Former Pakistan army chief Gen Mirza Aslam Baig recently alleged on a TV news channel that Blackwater was involved in the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto.

Shireen Mazari, a defence analyst and editor of The Nation daily, believes the American security contractor is operating in North West Frontier Province, Islamabad, Quetta, Karachi and Lahore.

Islamabad recently deported a US national who was believed to be an employee of Blackwater, which also operated during wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and whose functions had been shrouded in secrecy.

The Interior Ministry said the American national was accused of establishing “illegal contacts with pro-Taliban militants.”

The Lahore High Court too sought details of the deportation of the US national while hearing a petition regarding the presence of Blackwater in Pakistan.

The Pakistani media has been reporting about the presence of Blackwater in the country for the past few months. However, the Pakistan government and the US embassy have rejected reports about Blackwater’s presence in Pakistan.

“Blackwater is not operating in Pakistan. We have our own system, rules and regulations and will not allow anybody to operate from here,” Interior Minister Rehman Malik has said.

Blackwater has officially changed its name to Xe Services LLC.

Former ISI chief Asad Durrani

Press TV| Dec 25, 2009

Former ISI chief Asad Durrani says private US contractors such as Xe (formerly known as Blackwater) and other intelligence agents may be behind the assassination of civilians across Pakistan.

In an exclusive interview with Press TV, Durrani said on Friday that the local militants led by Hakimullah Mehsud primarily target the government and military installations.

Arguing against the local militants involvements in civilian assassinations, Durrani added that the militants consider Islamabad as a close ally of the US in the so-called ‘war on terror’ and that they have been launching retaliatory attacks against the government targets, particularly since the Pakistani army launched a major offensive against their stronghold in South Waziristan.

Durrani said that he doubted the notorious militants groups were behind a recent surge in attacks on civilian targets across the country.

The former head of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) claimed that certain theories were circulating among Pakistani intellectuals suggesting that the foreign agents or private US contractors could have been orchestrating assassinations on the civilian targets in the nuclear-armed country.

According to Durrani, these attacks were being carried out to encourage Islamabad to be more involved in war against the militants.

Pakistan has experienced a wave of violence over the past two years. Nearly 3,000 people have been killed in bomb attacks and other terrorist operations across the country.

veteranstoday.com | Dec 27, 2009

By Dr Shahid Qureshi

” Pakistan’s spy chief Lt. General Shuja Pasha reportedly gave proofs of CIA’s involvement into destabilizing/terrorist activities in Pakistan.  According to some assessments US mercenaries with support of ‘locally recruited agents’ are behind the targeted killings of senior Pakistani military officers in past few months. “

“Lawyers from the local bar associations protested out side the ’secret base’ of US mercenaries (Xe/Blackwater) inside ‘Sehala’ Police Training College few miles from Kahuta Nuclaer Plant. Why did Pakistani media ignore the story?”  Why is there no American or British reporting at all? As the propaganda that Pakistani nukes are likely to fall into the hands of the Taliban continues in the American press, one wonders what might be the US intent. Seen in the light that American mercenaries have become overt operationally, it appears that the intent is to use them to ‘lift’ the Pak Nukes using the threat from the Taliban as an excuse.

“It is a most ridiculous statement that the Taliban are going to walk into Pakistani nuclear sites and take control. Are nuclear weapons toys that can be taken away from an errant kid? It is common knowledge that different sections of the system are stored in different places; how can Taliban take over all sites and put them together” was my response to a question by Adam Brooks, BBC’s Washington correspondent, in a live program on BBC World Service TV on 23rd December 2009.

Some analysts believe that Black water is a bigger threat to Pakistan’s nuclear sites then real Taliban. There are reports that (TTP) ‘Tehrik Taliban Pakistan’ is co-sponsored by CIA-Raw-Mossad and perhaps some other interested parties. In fact TTP is created to fight Taliban in Afghanistan and may be for entrapments.

* The attacks on Pakistani sensitive institutions are serving the purpose of the enemies of Pakistan including India. Al-Qaida threat is like a ‘swine flue’ which can be used any where from Yemen, Somalia, Saudi Arabia and FATA depending on the aims, purpose and objectives of the Neoconic emerging policies in the concerned areas. Al-Qaida is a trump card in the hands of the ‘defense contractors and war profiteers’, main benefactors of the Global War on Terror and subsequent 9/11 terrorism’.

Pakistan’s spy chief Lt. General Shuja Pasha reportedly gave proofs of CIA’s involvement into destabilizing/terrorist activities in Pakistan. According to some assessments US mercenaries with support of ‘locally recruited agents’ are behind the targeted killings of senior Pakistani military officers in past few months.

In the current scenario it is irrelevant who gave permission, freedom of movement and a base in Police Training College few miles from the “Kahuta Nuclear Plant” to US private mercenaries (Black Water/Xe) in Pakistan. The most important question is what Rehman Malik and Zardari are doing about it?

According to reports 4 US nationals, who were dressed in Taliban clothes, speaking Pashto were arrested by the police approximately 1.5 miles from the Kahuta Nuclear Plant. They were carrying explosives and hand grenades in dozens in a 4×4 jeep with some kind of spying and jamming equipments. When they were brought to the police station people from Rehman Malik’s Interior Ministry and allegedly Salman Faruqui Zardari’s NRO partner and beneficiary got these criminals released without charge and handed over to the US embassy.”

Lawyers from the local bar associations protested out side the secret base of US mercenaries (Xe/Black Water) placed inside ‘Sehala’ Police Training College. Event the head of the college a senior DIG was not allowed in the US facility. That reminded me of an incident when reportedly military dictator General Ayub Khan’s Minister Foreign Affairs none other but Zulifkar Ali Bhutto, father in law of President Zardari wanted to visit US Base in Peshawar. His request was turned down by the base commander and he was turned away from the canteen. Soon after a US spy plane U2 was shot down in the soviet air space and pilot was taken into custody. Which obviously resulted in shutting down of the base as well as daily U” flights.

In the current scenario without making current corruption issue a moral or political debate, Pakistan is facing two major internal threats from two individuals. Asif Zardari and Rehman Malik are two major threats to Pakistan’s security and sovereignty. Zardari should be tried in an open and fair court trial for ‘Swiss’ money laundering and corruption. He should tell people of Pakistan:

* how did he have $60 million into his account

* as Daniel Zappelli, Geneva’s chief prosecutor, said the full $60 million in assets, seized at the request of the Pakistan authorities, had been released. “All the money has been unfrozen. For money-laundering to be proven, you have to show it was the product of a crime,” Zappelli told Reuters.

* What are the sources of $60 million

* President Zardari and his later wife Ms Bhutto denied ownership of ‘Surry Palace’ for years but claimed ownership in 2005 in the court

* how they got the cash and diamond necklaces

Rehman Malik is responsible for providing safe passages to Black water mercenaries via corrupt police officials day in day out even when there is an over whelming evidence that Black Water/ Xe are involved in terrorism and anti state activates against Pakistan’s armed forces, nuclear program and assassination of Benazir Bhutto according to former Army Chief General Aslam Baig (whom she awarded with medal).

Rehman Malik should be tried in open court for aiding, abetting and criminal acts committed by foreign mercenaries operating under the protection of his Interior Ministry.

In mid September 2009, a senior police officer Nasir Aftab was sacked by Rehman Malik because he arrested and apprehended armed Blackwater agents. The incident took place in Islamabad when Superintendent intercepted some Blackwater goons and Marines riding in a vehicle along with one or more CIA “officials.”

He took them to the Margala police station where a brawl took place. The SP later lodged an FIR against some officials of the intelligence agency. The Acting Chief of Islamabad Police DIG (Operations) Bin Yamin said, ‘reasons of officer’s removal were not mentioned in the letter”. So the responsibility comes down to Mr Rehman Malik.

He should be questioned. There is a dire need to identify ‘local collaborators’ and ‘enemies of the state’ in Pakistan.

According to a report filed by Fawad Ali of ‘The Nation’ on 14th December 2009, “17 Top Pakistani officials are protecting US interests in (NWFP) province neighbouring Afghanistan.  Seventeen officials serving in NWFP on various important posts are active members of the notorious American Khyber Club (AKC) that is believed to be a hotbed of conspiracies against Pakistan; highly placed sources informed The Nation.

These officials are facilitating American diplomats, operatives of CIA and mercenaries of Blackwater in their activities stretched across the province and FATA. In reciprocation, the local officials get full support in getting lucrative postings, transfers and getting away with inquiries, etc, sources disclosed and added they are taken care by Americans who have tones of money on their disposal.

“Those who stand out in serving US interests are posted on the posts of their own choice despite lapse of tenure, and this speaks of increasing American influence in our internal matters,” an official said. Their nominees get US visas in no time and the children as well as siblings of some officials are getting free education in prestigious institutions abroad. These days serving American interests is more fruitful for anyone than serving interests of Pakistan, an official who was made OSD for an unforgivable crime of non-cooperation with foreigners told The Nation.

The top 17 officials who have made American Khyber Club their second home include nine from District Management Group (DMG), six officers representing Police Service of Pakistan (PSP), while two are in the Office Management Group (OMG). The PSP officers who take pride in having personal relations with American operatives hail from Peshawar, Bannu, Lakki Marwat, Waziristan and Kohat.

They have been spotted roaming around with foreigners in their bulletproof cars and holding secret meetings with them in their offices which is an open violation of rules and regulations, sources informed.

The DMG officials who are protecting US interests in the region hail from Peshawar, Nowshehra, Swabi, Mardan and Charsadda. They also use the American Khyber Club as their unofficial secretariat. The officials belonging to OMG and PSC Executive Group hail from Waziristan and Shabqadar.

Orders have been repeatedly circulated that government officials can’t meet foreigners (Americans) without prior approval from the authorities concerned but no one seems to be interested in abiding by the rules.

On the other hand, those who are not in the good books of the American Consulate have been given insignificant posts or have simply been made Officers on Special (Spiritual) Duty (OSDs). The sources informed that Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency has reported the matter to the highest authorities in Islamabad.”

While talking to the writer the above mentioned senior journalist Mr. Fawad Ali confirmed that, ‘he is been threatened by the notorious ‘Black Water’, which forced him to go public to save his life’.  It looks likes a failed attempt to recruit him? So what did Rehman Malik do as all the police service officers are accountable to his ministry?

Rehman Malik is toeing ‘US Plan of using minorities’ which is becoming more and more visible which Iranians clearly understands. The questions one should be asking Mr Malik are (a) why majority of the people and companies hired by Xe/Black Water are Shias? (b) Why he always name Sunni sectarian groups/organisations minuets after the incidents (c) is he settling scores for some one in the name of counter terrorism?  (d) Why he never mentioned Indian Raw after attack on Sri Lankan team in Lahore, when Punjab CID warned Indian plan long before the incident?

On the one hand they are supporting Shia minority elements in private security agencies business but on the other making majority Sunnis realise that ‘less then 5% Shias of Pakistan are ruling the country from Presidency, State Bank, media. The so called Shia left pseudo intellectuals has jumped in the US bandwagon every where, both Pakistan and Iran should be careful with them.

PRIVATE CONTRACTORS AIDED IN ATTACKS ON US TROOPS IN IRAQ

The US strategy of creating sectarianism failed in Iraq and it was allegedly ‘Blackwater’ and private mercenaries bombing both Sunnis and Shia mosques. The Obama Administration must brought to justice those ‘friendly spies’ arrested in the US, who were releasing information about US troops movements in Iraq as IEDs were planted on those routes.

A senior based in the region told me that some times these private mercenaries establish fake check points, take people away for search, plant remote control bombs in their cars, told them to collect their papers from the place where explosion is intended, when vehicles get their devices were exploded. These people did not know that they were carriers. Private mercenaries are terrorizing people with the help of the locals. The people of who killed senior Pakistani military officers were allegedly re-trained by Xe/Black Water.

It is a fact that soldiers and officers retire at a young age due to type of profession and need to join other professions. Expose of these snakes in the grass, aiders and abettors of these foreign mercenaries is important. According to a report, “The security company of Ikram Sehgal, MD of Pathfinder and Security Management Services (SMS) was brought into spotlight being security providers of American embassy, and the strength of 20,000 plus security guards employed in that organization armed with sophisticated weapons and armoured vehicles were discussed.

The cause of frustration is solely based on suspicious activities of foreign agencies and their agents in Pakistan with local backing. It is important to analyze what owners of these agencies are up and to and where they are going. For Example as reported in the media Mr Ikram Sehgal’s statement, ‘ No harm in recognizing Israel’ is not only treacherous but against the state of Pakistan.

Mr Ikram Sehgal, chief editor of the Defense Journal, said on Saturday that there would no harm in Pakistan’s recognition of Israel if Tel Aviv could be pursued to refrain from a pro-Indian policy. In a lecture at the Department of International Relations at Karachi University, he said if Jordan and Egypt could recognize Israel, why not Pakistan? He does not understand the legality of the issue and historical stands of the father of the nation on the issue. Should this man allowed to continue run his ‘private army’ which could be converted into Israeli army any time?

A few years back Brinks USA was also among who jumped in to local security business but major cause of panic is recent recovery of weapons during a raids on the residence of Capt. Zaidi of InterRisk security agency and discovery of illegal prohibited weapons. It was recently reported that an international company SkyPlan is delivering NATO supplies via Sialkot airport. Why this matter is not been fully investigated as who is behind these activities?

Pakistan Armed Forces did not train Black water/Xe’s local recruits to work against the national interests of the state? As far Zardari and Rehman Malik are concerned they have converted Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party into (PPPP) Pimping, Pleasuring and Profiteering Party?

ombwatch.org | Dec 23, 2009

Yesterday, Justin Elliot at Talking Points Memo published an interesting piece on the never-ending saga that is the government’s relationship with the company formerly known as Blackwater. Despite the scandals, investigations and indictments that have recently plagued Xe – and the resultant loss of a license to operate in Iraq and the cancellation of several security contracts overseas – the company continues to perform work for the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Pentagon in Afghanistan and Iraq.

According to Elliot, during a Dec. 12 hearing held by the Commission on Wartime Contracting, Xe Vice President Fred Roitz told commission members that the company “has contracts for security as well as for training Afghan police and a ‘drug interdiction unit,’” and is “in the running for more work in Afghanistan.” That work, says Spencer Ackerman at the Washington Independent, would be the continuation of a security contract to protect State Department personnel in Afghanistan. And despite losing their license to operate in Iraq due to the 2007 Nisour Square Massacre in Bagdad that left 17 civilians dead, Xe continues to provide airborne security in Iraq.

Critics of Blackwater/Xe claim this is a public relations nightmare for the U.S. effort in Iraq and Afghanistan, but an equally important issue that the government’s continued use of security contractors like Blackwater/Xe, Triple Canopy and DynCorp raises is the proper role of contractors in theaters of war. While the U.S. government has used contractors in combat theaters since the American Revolution, the use of armed security contractors to guard embassies and shuttle diplomatic dignitaries around with authorization to use lethal force is a new phenomenon. Many within transparency/good-government circles would classify these duties as inherently governmental functions, which mean that no one other than government employees should perform them.

Unfortunately, as Jeremy Scahill argues, because the Obama administration relies on these security contractors to implement its Middle East policies, one shouldn’t expect that clarification on inherently governmental functions anytime soon.

Image by Flickr user rjosef used under a Creative Commons license.