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<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — Jurors deliberating the fate of four former Blackwater security guards in the shootings of more than 30 Iraqi citizens were granted a request to watch a videotape showing the aftermath of the violence.</p> <p>Monday was the 25th day of deliberations by the jury of eight women and four men. They asked to see the tape, which had been shown during the trial.</p>

As the fight against the Islamic State unfolds, the take of Erik Prince, the founder of the former private security firm Blackwater, is straightforward: If the United States is unwilling to send in ground troops, “let the private sector finish the job.” Prince addressed the subject this week in a little-noticed blog post on the site of his newest security and logistics firm, Frontier Services Group. Prince left Blackwater, with its checkered history in Iraq, including the killing by contractors of 17 civilians in a 2007 shooting, in 2010. The trial of four Blackwater guards involved in the shooting in...

Washington -- Jurors in the murder and manslaughter trial of four Blackwater Worldwide security guards concluded their 15th day of deliberations on Thursday with no verdict in sight, showing that the group of 12 is painstakingly considering the issues of the complex case, which may work in the defense's favor, experts say. For 10 weeks, the Blackwater jury heard testimony alleging that Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard and some other members of Blackwater's Raven 23 convoy fired shots in Baghdad's Nisour Square on Sept. 16, 2007, killing 14 Iraqis and injuring 18 others. But the 12-person jury...

Erik Prince says his old private army could have dealt with the Islamic State militants on their own—and that Republicans need to start fighting ‘like we pay them to.’ Erik Prince has a message for ISIS: You’re lucky Blackwater is gone. On Friday night, the controversial founder of the private military company had plenty to say about what the organization he once ran could be doing in the fight against the so-called Islamic State—and also why Republicans need to stop being such losers. “It’s a shame the [Obama] administration crushed my old business, because as a private organization, we could’ve...

The summer-long trial of four Blackwater security guards in the shootings of more than 30 Iraqis has been a grim retelling of lives snuffed out and the daily life-and-death decisions amid the chaos of war. Wrapping up almost 6,200 miles from Baghdad, the trial is the best hope the survivors and the families of the victims have for accountability for the violence at Nisoor Square on Sept. 16, 2007, in which 14 people were killed. After 10 weeks of arguments and testimony, the case goes to the jury Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Blackwater security guard Matthew Murphy and now-indicted ex-colleague Paul Slough were friends, having survived the war in Iraq together, creating a bond that under different circumstances might have lasted a lifetime. But from the witness stand in the Blackwater criminal trial this week, Murphy testified that he saw Slough fire at least two grenades into a car where a woman and her son died, two of 14 Iraqis killed on Sept. 16, 2007, in a downtown Baghdad square. In three days of testimony, Murphy became the first Blackwater security guard to testify against his former associates...

WASHINGTON — Just weeks before Blackwater guards fatally shot 17 civilians at Baghdad’s Nisour Square in 2007, the State Department began investigating the security contractor’s operations in Iraq. But the inquiry was abandoned after Blackwater’s top manager there issued a threat: “that he could kill” the government’s chief investigator and “no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq,” according to department reports.

After years of delays, former Blackwater Worldwide security guards are going on trial in the killings of 14 Iraqis and the wounding of at least 18 others. Over the next few days, a jury of 12 residents from the District of Columbia will be chosen from a pool of 150 people to decide the guards’ fate. …

Moscow believes information that Western, first and foremost American, mercenaries are operating in Ukraine to be true, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday. “We are waiting for answers, because we … have very strong suspicions that this might be true,” Lavrov said during an English-language interview with Bloomberg. SNIP----- According to the German Bild am Sonntag newspaper, around 400 elite commandos of notorious US private security firm Academi are allegedly helping Ukrainian authorities in a punitive operation against federalists in the country’s eastern regions. The newspaper said the Academi mercenaries have taken part in attacks against federalists near Slaviansk,...

Soldiers from a private US security company with a record of alleged atrocities in Iraq are supporting Ukraine’s security forces in the volatile east of the country, the German newspaper Bild reported Sunday. The report, citing Germany’s federal intelligence agency BND, said 400 of the heavily-armed men employed by the group formerly known as Blackwater were deployed in the vicinity of Lugansk where pro-Russian separatists are seeking self-rule. The BND declined to comment on the report, while the security company -- now known as Academi -- dismissed similar reports in March. Bild reported that according to a BND assessment, US...

The Russian government today claimed there are more than 100 American 'mercenaries' from a defense contracting company disguised as Ukrainian troops in the embattled former Soviet nation, a claim the American firm and top U.S. officials deny. ... The latest news relesae from Greystone, as posted on a company blog, is from September 2012, titled "New business in Russia" and simply says the company "provided executive protection services in Russia." In April 2012, the company announced it had been awarded a similar contract in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. ...

peculation was growing last night that American mercenaries had been deployed to Donetsk after videos emerged of unidentified armed men in the streets of the eastern Ukrainian city. At least two videos published on YouTube earlier this week show burly, heavily armed soldiers with no insignia in the city, which has been gripped by pro-Moscow protests. In one of the videos onlookers can be heard shouting 'Blackwater! Blackwater!' as the armed men, who wear no insignia, jog through the streets....

Erik Prince —ex-Navy SEAL, ex-CIA spy, ex-CEO of private-security firm Blackwater —calls himself an "accidental tourist" whose modest business boomed after 9/11, expanded into Iraq and Afghanistan, and then was "blowtorched by politics." To critics and conspiracy theorists, he is a mercenary war-profiteer. To admirers, he's a patriot who has repeatedly answered America's call with bravery and creativity. Now, sitting in a boardroom above Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour, he explains his newest title, acquired this month: chairman of Frontier Services Group, an Africa-focused security and logistics company with intimate ties to China's largest state-owned conglomerate, Citic Group. Beijing has titanic...

On April 8, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi headlined a Boston conference on ''media reform.'' She was joined by four other congressmen, a senator, two FCC commissioners, a Nobel laureate and numerous liberal journalists. The 2,500-person event was sponsored by a group called Free Press, one of more than 180 different media-related organizations that receives money from liberal billionaire George Soros. Soros, who first made a name for himself in investing and currency trading, now makes his name in politics and policy. Since the 2004 election, the controversial financier has used his influence and billions to push a laundry list...

With all the recent talk about gun control, the high level of ammo/firearm purchasing and the just demonstrated lack of GOP gonads on fiscal matters, I started to wonder just how fast they would roll over for DiFi? But I guess the real question would be; If Difi got her wish on her new bill, how would they start if millions resisted? Would the government realize that there wasn't going to be a cheerful obedience to the new law and just let millions get away with this resistance? If there decided to go after gun owners who refused to register,...

I spoke with a well-placed journalist last night whose sources describe the situation at the State Department in one word: “Chaos.” The working assumption is that several American embassies may have been penetrated, or are vulnerable to attack, because so many of them rely on local residents for staff needs at the embassy, and as such may be in a position to breach security if they have been recruited by Al Qaida. ...The consulate in Benghazi was an interim facility, with only a standard door lock for security, and worse, Ambassador Stevens was traveling with only a light security detail,...

The State Department is denying charges it held up a security contract to protect the U.S. Ambassador in volatile post-conflict Libya. On an appearance last night on Piers Morgan Tonight , former Romney and United Nations spokesperson Ric Grenell said he’d been told by State Department officials that Academi “was set to go in and provide security for the Ambassador in Libya.” “They have been waiting,” Grenell said. “They've done some preliminary evaluations, but for two months, they have been waiting while the State Department decides to get the paperwork right." A second source with ties to Foggy Bottom confirmed...

US government officials requested that an American private security firm contact Syrian opposition figures in Turkey to see “how they can help in regime change,” the CEO of one of these firms told Stratfor in a company email obtained by WikiLeaks and Al-Akhbar. James F. Smith, former director of Blackwater, is currently the Chief Executive of SCG International, a private security firm with experience in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. In what appears to be his first email to Stratfor, Smith stated that his “background is CIA” and his company is comprised of “former DOD [Department of Defense], CIA and former...

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- Days after the last U.S. troops left Iraq, a federal appeals court ended a lawsuit over an episode that produced one of the more disturbing images of the war: the grisly killings of four Blackwater security contractors and the hanging of a pair of their bodies from a bridge in Fallujah. Families of the victims reached a confidential settlement with the company's corporate successor, Arlington, Va.-based Academi, and the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the suit last week. The settlement was first reported Friday by The Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk, Va. The deal ends the...

<p>"Blackwater" was developed by Zombie Studios and overseen by former Navy SEAL and Blackwater founder Erik Prince.</p> <p>More and more, today's video game business is driven by huge military shooters like Activision's "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3" and Electronic Arts' "Battlefield 3."</p>