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US Citizens Killed In Afghanistan Eight Americans have been killed in a suicide bomb attack in south-eastern Afghanistan, US officials say. The suicide bomber was wearing an explosive vest as he carried out the attack at a forward operating base in Khost province, CNN reported. Details about the attack are still emerging and it was not clear how many people had been injured. One unnamed US official was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying that all of those killed were civilians.

<p>It was reported this week that Holland native Erik Prince is severing ties to Blackwater, the controversial international security firm he founded, complaining that he had been "thrown under the bus."</p> <p>In that context, Vanity Fair's profile of Prince is a compelling read. Prince invited the magazine to tour the headquarters of Blackwater (now called Xe) in North Carolina and examine its operation in Afghanistan, presumably to clear the air.</p>

Navy SEALs have secretly captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq — the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004. And three of the SEALs who captured him are now facing criminal charges, sources told FoxNews.com.

An American newspaper has revealed a new scandal committed by Blackwater (actually it was Armor Group - foreign 3rd world personnel) security guards protecting the American Embassy in the Afghan capital city of Kabul. The newspaper published a report titled ‘This is what our children are doing abroad’. The report said, “They are drinking vodka and peeing on themselves like animals. They intentionally run outside naked and then pour vodka over each other’s asses.” The newspaper wondered, “What makes the Pentagon deal with these ‘special companies’ that cause harm and kill in a criminal way?” The newspaper noted, “Their ‘gay...

The Justice Department prosecutor appointed this week to examine the CIA's interrogation program will revisit long dormant-cases of abuse by the agency's civilian contractors, bringing new attention to a little- known but controversial element of the Bush administration's war on terrorism. Civilian contractors used by the CIA at secret overseas facilities were said to be involved in a series of cases of detainee abuses and deaths in the years following the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, but only one was ever prosecuted. The contractors also played a key but secret role in the CIA's brutal interrogations of suspected top...

he Nation is claiming to have information from informants that Blackwater founder Erik Prince is some sort of delusional latter-day Templar Knight, ordering murders to cover up his plot to wage war against the Islamic world. If it sounds a bit far-fetched … well, it should. Without going into the specific allegations being made in the consolidated civil cases, logic and factual errors in claims made in the article are troubling. See this claim from a man who claims to be a former member of the Blackwater management team, identified as John Doe #2: "Using his various companies, [Prince] procured...

The head of Blackwater and his employees may have killed or ordered the killing of people suspected of cooperating with federal investigators probing their activities, according to an anonymous affidavit filed in federal court Monday. The affidavit, one of two filed Monday, makes an extraordinary bundle of claims about the former Blackwater CEO, Erik Prince, and his employees. The existence of the documents was first reported by the Nation magazine Tuesday. They were filed as part of a civil suit against Prince and Blackwater by several Iraqis, which accuse the firm and owner of war crimes, wrongful death and more....

Iraqi authorities have detained five U.S. citizens in connection with the death of an American contractor in Baghdad, officials said Sunday, in what could be the first case of Americans facing local justice under a joint security pact that took effect this year. The body of Jim Kitterman, who was reportedly bound, blindfolded and stabbed, was found in his car last month in the protected Green Zone where his small construction company was based. It was an unprecedented slaying in the sprawling district and occurred at a time when blast walls are coming down and Iraqi forces are assuming greater...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi forces detained five U.S. security contractors in connection with the killing of a fellow American contractor last month in Baghdad's Green Zone, an Iraqi government spokesman said on Sunday. Major General Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the Interior Ministry spokesman, said the five men were being held at an Iraqi police station in the capital's heavily-fortified central district while a joint Iraqi-U.S. committee investigated. The detainees could become the first Americans to face local justice since a bilateral security pact came into force at the start of this year making U.S. contractors subject to Iraqi law. "There are no...

As the secrets about the CIA's interrogation techniques continue to come out, there's new information about the frequency and severity of their use, contradicting an 2007 ABC News report, and a new focus on two private contractors who were apparently directing the brutal sessions that President Obama calls torture.

BARROW, UK: BAE Systems workers today celebrated delivery of the 500th M777 howitzer to the US military. Weighing in at less than 4200kg, the revolutionary M777 is the world's first artillery weapon to make widespread use of titanium and aluminum alloys, resulting in a howitzer which is half the weight of conventional 155mm systems. BAE Systems Global Combat Systems' facility at Barrow-in- Furness is responsible for the prime contract management of the M777 programme, including direct customer liaison and acceptance of the weapon system in the US, control of the UK and US supply chain, engineering design authority and manufacturing...

Days after the Baghdad government decided it no longer wanted the company then known as Blackwater in Iraq, the State Department signed a $22.2 million deal in February to keep the embattled contractor working there through most of the summer, contract records show. The decision keeps Blackwater - since renamed Xe - in Iraq months longer than anyone has suggested publicly, while raising questions about why the U.S. would pay a contractor for work in Iraq if it may not be able to operate there legally. The State Department has been under pressure from Blackwater critics, including several in Congress,...

Former Marine Killed in IraqLast Edited: Friday, 06 Mar 2009, 10:38 PM EST Created On: Friday, 06 Mar 2009, 10:37 PM EST Ron Savage RIVERVIEW, Mich. - A former Marine from metropolitan Detroit is killed in Iraq. 25-year-old Justin Pope was working for a U.S. contractor. Friday night, he was remembered as a kind and brave man who wanted to serve his country. A crowd of more than 100 people gathered to celebrate his life. The Riverview police and fire departments also joined the vigil. It was an evening of prayers, candles and crying. Pope served two tours of duty...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- A senior U.S. official says the State Department will not renew Blackwater Worldwide's contract to protect American diplomats in Iraq when it expires in May.

Iraq said Thursday it will bar Blackwater Worldwide from providing security protection for U.S. diplomats because its contractors used excessive force, sanctioning a company whose image was irrevocably tarnished by the 2007 killings of 17 Iraqi civilians. The move will deprive American diplomats of their main protection force in Iraq. The decision not to issue Blackwater an operating license was due to "improper conduct and excessive use of force," ...

Iraq will not allow Blackwater Worldwide to continue providing security protection for U.S. diplomats in the country, Iraqi and U.S. officials said Thursday. (snip) The decision not to issue Blackwater an operating license was due to "improper conduct and excessive use of force," said Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf.

BREAKING NEWS CNN (January 22/2009) 3:55pm EST: KBR, formally Halliburton, a private contractors, through shoddy work caused electrocution deaths of U.S. soldiers in army bases in Iraq.

<p>WASHINGTON, D.C. -- When the nation’s in pain, Washington often gains. Whether it’s a buildup of Civil War troops, Depression-era bureaucrats or defense contractors after Sept. 11, the region has prospered in times of crisis. Today, the financial meltdown is delivering a jolt of its own.</p>

As Erik Prince rattles off history's roster of "privateers," or independent contractors who helped shape, secure and ultimately spread American democracy — Revolutionary War naval fighter John Paul Jones to the "Flying Tigers" of World War II — a U.S. Coast Guard search-and-rescue helicopter swoops down over a lake outside his office window and evacuates four souls in distress. A hundred yards beyond the orange-and-white chopper, green smoke pours from a bombed-out vehicle carrying an American diplomat, who lies injured on the ground. Within seconds, a security team in three four-wheel-drive vehicles speeds in reverse to rescue the official and...

Washington, D.C. - Here's a new reason for taxpayer dismay: There's increasing evidence that companies may be protesting government contract awards as a strategy to negotiate their way into contracts or to derail an award process already in place. ... In February, IBM protested the Federal Bureau of Investigation's award of a $1 billion contract to Lockheed Martin (nyse: LMT - news - people ). Big Blue dropped its dispute two months later when Lockheed announced it would use IBM as a subcontractor.

San Diego, CA (AP) -- A federal judge ordered the city of San Diego Wednesday to allow military contractor Blackwater Worldwide to begin using a new counterterrorism training facility. District Court Judge Marilyn Huff ruled that the company would suffer irreparable harm if it could not begin holding classes for Navy sailors at a converted warehouse outfitted with an indoor firing range. Blackwater sued last month to force the city to issue final occupancy permits after the required inspections were already approved, claiming officials upended normal procedures because they were concerned about political backlash. The city responded that the company...

KBR Corp. said today it would buy BE&K, the 48th largest general construction contractor in the country with 9,000 worldwide employees, for $550 million. KBR, the nation's fourth largest general contractor, was spun off last year as its own publicly traded company from Houston-based Halliburton Corp., the largest contractor for military services in Iraq.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - The family of a contractor kidnapped in Iraq said Sunday that U.S. officials have notified them they've found a body that could be his. The family of Jonathon Cote said on the Web site Free Cote that an unidentified sixth body has been recovered near Basra, in southern Iraq. Cote was one of six Western contractors kidnapped in two separate incidents. The Getzville, N.Y., resident was working in Kuwait for Crescent Security Group when he and four colleagues were abducted in November 2006. -snip-

Since 2006, when the insurgency in Afghanistan sharply intensified, the Afghan government has been dependent on American logistics and military support in the war against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. But to arm the Afghan forces that it hopes will lead this fight, the U.S. military has relied since early last year on a fledgling company led by a 22-year-old man, Efraim Diveroli, whose vice president was a licensed masseur. With the award last January of a federal contract worth as much as nearly $300 million, the company, AEY Inc., which operates out of an unmarked office in Miami Beach, Fla.,...

The State Department confirms that two U.S. citizens have died in Iraq this week from indirect fire by rocket and mortar attacks in the Green Zone. The first person, a contractor for the US Army, died on Monday, March 24, and this afternoon, we have confirmation that another U.S. citizen has died from the latest round of fire. The State Department says of this latest death "no further details, pending notification of next of kin."

WASHINGTON - Authorities are awaiting identification of the remains of three bodies in Iraq, a U.S. law enforcement official said Tuesday, a day after the remains of two kidnapped contractors were identified. Four other kidnapped Western contractors have been missing for more than a year. The disappearances received new attention this month when the severed fingers of several men were sent to the U.S. military in Iraq. Several relatives had taken the discovery of the fingers as a hopeful sign but hopes dimmed Monday when the FBI said the remains of Ronald Withrow of Roaring Springs, Texas, and John Roy...

Authorities are awaiting identification of the remains of three more bodies found in Iraq, a U.S. law enforcement official said Tuesday. Sources say the remains are those of more missing contractors; the news comes a day after the remains of two kidnapped contractors were identified. Among the missing are Paul Johnson Reuben of Buffalo, Minnesota. The others still missing are Jonathon Cote, of Getzville, N.Y.; Joshua Munns of Redding, Calif.; and Bert Nussbaumer of Vienna, Austria. A finger from each was received by the military recently. Four other kidnapped Western contractors have been missing for more than a year. The...

"I'm just - beside myself," says Barbara Alexander Barbara has been living a nightmare since January 2007. Her son Ronald J. Withrow or Ronnie, now 40, was taken hostage in Iraq while working with a computer company. Barbara longs every day for new information about her son's safety and his whereabouts and Thursday she finally got some, but it wasn't quite the good news she was hoping for. Ronnie's severed finger had been mailed to U.S. authorities in Baghdad. "Whenever you are surprised by news like that, you know, it just sends you way on back. You're just back sided,"...

Military to Receive Notice of Operations A new memorandum of understanding on private security contractors in Iraq, agreed to in Baghdad by Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker and Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. military commander in Iraq, requires "full coordination" between military and diplomatic officials on the ground but leaves State in control of its own contractors, U.S. officials said. The agreement, which has not been published, places a military official for the first time in the tactical operations center of the embassy's security office, according to Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte. The military will receive "prior notification"...

Five Western security contractors kidnapped a year ago in Iraq are still alive, their employer said Monday, stressing that authorities are exerting all efforts to secure their release. The four Americans and an Austrian colleague employed by Kuwait-based Crescent Security Group were among 14 people kidnapped Nov. 16, 2006, by men in Iraqi police uniforms who ambushed a convoy they were escorting near the southern Iraqi border city of Safwan. Crescent managing partner Franco Picco said the company has been working with the FBI to find the men. They are alive and "we do have an idea where they are."...

(The URL will not go to this email) Classification: UNCLASSIFIED -----Original Message----- From: Subject: FW: Blackwater Thanks to US Naval Officer John Doe for sharing this personal information regarding Blackwater and other security contractors in Iraq. I think you will find it counter to all you are reading here.....Hal ============================================================================ I was asked recently by a WW II veteran if I had an opinion on the activities of the men under contract with Blackwater in Iraq. Having no personal knowledge, I asked a person whom I believed had 'been there and done that.' The reply from Don Kropp, Colonel USA...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday ordered tougher oversight of private guards in Iraq, including tighter rules on the use of force, following deadly shootings involving U.S. security contractor Blackwater. The State Department said other measures included improved training and clearer rules of engagement, better coordination with the U.S. military as well as cultural sensitivity training for guards and more Arabic speakers. Rice made the move following recommendations by a panel of experts she appointed to look into the work of private security contractors after the September 16 shooting incident in Baghdad that killed at...

The Geopolitical Foundations of Blackwater By George Friedman For the past three weeks, Blackwater, a private security firm under contract to the U.S. State Department, has been under intense scrutiny over its operations in Iraq. The Blackwater controversy has highlighted the use of civilians for what appears to be combat or near-combat missions in Iraq. Moreover, it has raised two important questions: Who controls these private forces and to whom are they accountable? The issue is neither unique to Blackwater nor to matters of combat. There have long been questions about the role of Halliburton and its former subsidiary,...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The State Department may phase out or limit the use of private security guards in Iraq, which could mean canceling Blackwater USA's contract or awarding it to another company in line with an Iraqi government demand, The Associated Press has learned. -snip- The officials said Kennedy's team was not expected to recommend eliminating all private contractors because it would have a profound impact on how U.S. diplomats work in Iraq. The State Department's own Bureau of Diplomatic Security lacks both the manpower and equipment, notably helicopters, to do the job, they said. The State Department has operated...

Pentagon officials suggested yesterday that U.S. civilian security contractors in Iraq fall under the Uniformed Code of Military Justice and could be prosecuted in military courts for offenses against Iraqis. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters that while U.S. civilians working in Iraq under Department of Defense contracts were not subject to Iraqi law, they could be held accountable under U.S. law. Iraqi officials have complained of their inability to prosecute civilian contractors, some of whom have been accused of shooting indiscriminately into crowds and killing innocent civilians. Questions have been raised whether the contractors are subject to any law...

Before the smoke cleared from the attack on a Blackwater security detail in Iraq on September 16, 2007, the mainstream media began its relentless attacks on the security contractors who have risked their lives – and in some cases given their lives - to serve our country in Iraq. Their assignment, among other things, is to protect their principals - reporters, ambassadors, Senators, Congressmen and even Secretary of State Condolezza Rice - in war-torn Iraq. It is not lost among those of us who endured the same frenzied and sensational journalism while driving trucks in Iraq for KBR in 2004/2005...

Blackwater is a private company that does the dirty work for America in various wars, both covert and those we know about all too well. It began only 10 years ago as a sort of cheerful paintball and shooting range in the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina, but these days it has some 20,000 mercenaries on its books (the “whores of war”), not to mention a whole bunch of quasi-military aircraft, a military base, lots and lots of guns and connections with precisely the right people. It was brought into existence by Erik Prince, a somewhat right-of-centre Roman Catholic...

BAGHDAD, (AP) -- American convoys under the protection of Blackwater USA resumed on Friday, four days after the U.S. Embassy suspended all land travel by its diplomats and other civilian officials in response to the alleged killing of civilians by the security firm. A top aide to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had earlier conceded it may prove difficult for the Iraqi government to follow through on threats to expel Blackwater and other Western security contractors. The aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation into Sunday's incident was ongoing, said a way out of the Blackwater crisis could...

WASHINGTON - Federal prosecutors are investigating whether employees of the private security firm Blackwater USA illegally smuggled into Iraq weapons that may have been sold on the black market and ended up in the hands of a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, officials said Friday. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Raleigh, N.C., is handling the investigation with help from Pentagon and State Department auditors, who have concluded there is enough evidence to file charges, the officials told The Associated Press. Blackwater is based in Moyock, N.C. A spokeswoman for Blackwater did not return calls seeking comment Friday. The U.S. attorney for the...

WASHINGTON - The fog of war keeps getting thicker. The Iraqi government's decision to temporarily ban the security company Blackwater USA after a fatal shooting of civilians in Baghdad reveals a growing web of rules governing weapons-bearing private contractors but few signs U.S. agencies are aggressively enforcing them. Nearly a year after a law was passed holding contracted employees to the same code of justice as military personnel, the Bush administration has not published guidance on how military lawyers should do that, according to Peter Singer, a security industry expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington. A Congressional Research Service...

During a telephone conversation on Monday night, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki agreed that U.S. diplomats must be free to travel around Iraq, but how they will do that is now a point of contention. The U.S. embassy in Baghdad relies heavily on Blackwater security to guard its personnel as they visit government ministries and other sites around Iraq. American diplomats have not been able to travel outside the Green Zone since Iraq suspended Blackwater's license following a firefight Sunday that resulted in the deaths of at least eight Iraqi civilians. "We're there...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq announced on Monday it had withdrawn the license of a U.S. security firm and would prosecute employees it said were involved in a Baghdad shooting in which 11 people were killed. An Interior Ministry spokesman said guards working for Blackwater, one of the biggest foreign security contractors in Iraq, opened fire after mortar rounds landed near their convoy in west Baghdad's Mansour district on Sunday. "By chance the company was passing by. They opened fire randomly at citizens," Brigadier-General Abdul-Karim Khalaf said. Eleven people were killed, including one policeman, and 13 people were wounded, he said....

Those critics now include the Iraqi Interior Ministry, which said Monday it had revoked Blackwater's license to operate following a chaotic weekend shootout that Iraqi authorities say left eight civilians dead and 13 injured. ``The 'civilians' reportedly fired upon by Blackwater professionals were in fact armed enemies and Blackwater personnel returned defensive fire,'' company spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said late Monday. ``Blackwater regrets any loss of life, but this convoy was violently attacked by armed insurgents, not civilians, and our people did their job to defend human life.'' ``The Blackwater guys are not fools,'' Pelton said. ``If they were gunning down...

BAGHDAD - The Interior Ministry said Monday that it was pulling the license of an American security firm allegedly involved in the fatal shooting of civilians during an attack on a U.S. State Department motorcade in Baghdad. The ministry said it would prosecute any foreign contractors found to have used excessive force in the Sunday incident. Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul-Karim Khalaf said eight people were killed and 13 were wounded when security contractors working for Blackwater USA opened fire in a predominantly Sunni neighborhood of western Baghdad. "We have canceled the license of Blackwater and prevented them from working all...

A week ago today, Gen. David H. Petraeus started his rounds on Capitol Hill, reporting that security in Iraq was improving to the point that a small number of troops could begin coming home by year's end. But 10 days ago, his commanders in Baghdad began advertising for private contractors to work in combat-supply warehouses on U.S. bases throughout Iraq because half the soldiers who had been working in the warehouses were needed for patrols, combat and protection of U.S. forces.

BAGHDAD - The Iraqi government Monday ordered Blackwater USA, the security firm that protects U.S. diplomats, to stop work and leave the country after the fatal shooting of eight Iraqi civilians following a car bomb attack against a State Department convoy. The order by the Interior Ministry, if carried out, would deal a severe blow to U.S. government operations in Iraq by stripping diplomats, engineers, reconstruction officials and others of their security protection. The presence of so many visible, aggressive Western security contractors has angered many Iraqis, who consider them a mercenary force that runs roughshod over people in their...

The death toll of Americans killed in Iraq is much higher than commonly reported and may now exceed 5,000, based on Pentagon and U.S. Labor Department reports. That's because official Pentagon statistics do not count the deaths of private contractors, who are playing a much bigger role in Iraq than in most previous wars. Based on workers' compensation claims filed with the U.S. Labor Department, 1,001 contract employees had died in Iraq as of June. Adding contractor deaths to the Pentagon's statistics gives a more realistic assessment of the war’s total impact. As of late August, for example, the Pentagon...

Security company Blackwater U.S.A. is buying Super Tucano light combat aircraft from the Brazilian manufacturer Embraer. These five ton, single engine, single seat aircraft are built for pilot training, but also perform quite well for counter-insurgency work.

A contractor's story from Iraq By CARL LAVO AND RICK STAGER Bucks County Courier Times AL ASAD AIRFIELD, Western Iraq — The reason I took this job in Iraq was denial: Look, I’m still working. I haven’t been relegated to making bird houses in the basement yet. I’ve got a job, how could I be old? Also, I needed the money. So I found perhaps the single employer who would hire a retiree my age (66) at a decent salary: KBR Halliburton. The bombs and land mines I encountered in Iraq were the truths I have had to face, but...

The number of U.S.-paid private contractors in Iraq now exceeds that of American combat troops, newly released figures show, raising fresh questions about the privatization of the war effort and the government's capacity to carry out military and rebuilding campaigns. More than 180,000 civilians — including Americans, foreigners and Iraqis — are working in Iraq under U.S. contracts, according to State and Defense department figures obtained by the Los Angeles Times. Including the recent troop buildup, 160,000 soldiers and a few thousand civilian government employees are stationed in Iraq. The total number of private contractors, far higher than previously reported,...