US Judge Lets Blackwater/Xe Mercenaries Off the Hook

A US federal judge has dismissed criminal charges against five Blackwater/Xe security guards accused of fatally shooting 14 people in Baghdad in September 2007.

On Thursday, Judge Ricardo Urbina said US government prosecutors violated the defendants' rights by using incriminating statements they had made under immunity during a State Department probe to build their case.'

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US to Expand Drone Attacks Into Pakistani Cities

After confirmation that the CIA has been operating drone strikes in Pakistani territory, a new report says the US is seeking to expand the attacks into the country's cities.

The Los Angeles Times reported on Sunday that top US officials were pushing to expand the air strikes beyond Pakistan's tribal region and into the major city of Quetta to allegedly target the Taliban.

Although the US and Pakistan have long been denying that the drones were taking off from Pakistani soil , the CIA confirmed on Saturday that US security contractor Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater, has been helping the agency to launch the attacks from within Pakistan.'

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Blackwater Behind Pakistan Bombings: Ex-Intel Chief

The former head of Pakistan's intelligence agency, ISI, Asad Durrani said in an interview with Press TV that Blackwater, a notorious US security firm, is carrying out operations in the country.

His comments came after the US Central intelligence Agency (CIA) revealed that Blackwater, which currently works under the name Xe Services, has been involved in drone attacks in Pakistan.'

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Blackwater's Secret War in Pakistan

At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, "snatch and grabs" of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help run a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.'

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Blackwater Involved in Bhutto and Hariri Assassinations Says Former Pakistani Army Chief

Pakistan’s former chief of army staff, General Mirza Aslam Beg (ret.), has said the U.S. private security company Blackwater was directly involved in the assassinations of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto and former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.
Blackwater later changed its name and is now known as Xe.

General Beg, who was chief of army staff during Benazir Bhutto’s first administration, said U.S. officials always kept the presence of Blackwater in Pakistan secret because they were afraid of possible attacks on the U.S. Embassy and its consulates in Pakistan.

During an interview with a Pakistani TV network, Beg claimed that the United States killed Benazir Bhutto. '

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Pakistani-Pashtuns Say Blackwater USA (Xe Services) Exploded Peshawar Bomb Blast

Chief of Pakistani- Pashtun Movement in Pakistan Hakimullah Mehsud has blamed the controversial American private firm Blackwater [Xe Services] for the bomb blast in Peshawar which killed over 117 [Pakistani] people, local news agency NNI reported Thursday.

The bomb, exploded at a crowded market at Chowk Yadgar [in Peshawar, Pakistan] on Wednesday [28 October 2009], also injured more than 250 [Pakistani] people. Hakimullah Mehsud told media that if Pakistani-Pashtuns can carry out attacks in Islamabad and target Pakistan Army's headquarters, then why they should target general public.

He claimed that American security agency Blackwater [Xe Services] and Pakistani agencies are involved in attacks in public places to [maliciously] blame the militants.'

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'Ravenwood' Comes To America

Fans of the CBS-terminated TV series JERICHO will recognize the name “Ravenwood.” This was the ruthless mercenary force used by the illegitimate federal government at Cheyenne to subjugate the citizens of Kansas in the aftermath of a massive nuclear attack against two dozen American cities. As with much of JERICHO’s superbly written story line, Ravenwood reflected real-world entities. Private mercenary forces have been used extensively throughout the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, as well as in many other theaters. And as JERICHO correctly depicted, these “private contractors” have largely operated without oversight or accountability. (Can anyone say, “Blackwater”?) For the most part, the American people are unfamiliar with these mercenary forces, because they normally operate in foreign theaters of war. JERICHO put them on the streets of U.S. cities. Now it looks like JERICHO was more prophecy than fiction.

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Exposed: American Police Force Is A Blackwater Front Group

American Police Force, the paramilitary unit patrolling a small town in Montana, has been exposed as being a front group for the disgraced private military contractor Blackwater, now called “Xe”.

The American Police Force website, on a page that has swiftly been deleted but remains cached here, states that APF runs the “U.S. Training Center,” which proves “a wide range of instruction and training for all types of law enforcement organizations, from basic firearms training to complex SWAT tactics,” according to the website.

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Federal Prosecutors Say Blackwater/Xe 'Specifically Intended to Kill' Civilians

On September 7, federal prosecutors in Washington DC submitted papers in the criminal case against five Blackwater operatives for their alleged role in the 2007 Nisour Square shooting in Baghdad that killed 17 Iraqi civilians and wounded more than 20 others.

Blackwater forces "fired at innocent Iraqis not because they actually believed that they were in imminent danger of serious bodily injury and actually believed that they had no alternative to the use of deadly force, but rather that they fired at innocent Iraqi civilians because of their hostility toward Iraqis and their grave indifference to the harm that their actions would cause," the acting US Attorney in DC, Channing Phillips, alleges in court papers submitted by Kenneth C. Kohl, the lead prosecutor on this case. "

[T]he defendants specifically intended to kill or seriously injure the Iraqi civilians that they fired upon at Nisur Square."

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US Hummers Enter Pakistan, Undercover American Soldiers In Islamabad

Undercover armed Americans are swarming the Pakistani capital in the latest sign that the elected government has allowed Washington to dispatch what is believed to be a large number of American special operations agents and contractual security guards, including the infamous Blackwater private militia.

This comes at a time when whistleblowers within the government and the military are reporting the arrival of a large number of US Marines in Pakistan. Some reports put the figure at 1,000 US soldiers, much of whom are thought to be arriving as part of the massive expansion of the US Embassy and four consulates across the country. While the US embassy continues to deny this, new buildings are under construction to house security teams. The expanded US embassy is supposed to become the largest US embassy in the world.

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Blackwater/Xe: CIA Assassins?

In April 2002, the CIA paid Blackwater more than $5 million to deploy a small team of men inside Afghanistan during the early stages of US operations in the country. A month later, Erik Prince, the company's owner and a former Navy SEAL, flew to Afghanistan as part of the original twenty-man Blackwater contingent. Blackwater worked for the CIA at its station in Kabul as well as in Shkin, along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, where they operated out of a mud fortress known as the Alamo. It was the beginning of a long relationship between Blackwater, Prince and the CIA. Now the New York Times is reporting that in 2004 the CIA hired Blackwater "as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda.

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State Department Upholds Blackwater 'License to Kill'

The US State Department refuses to waive the right for private security contractor Xe Services LLC, formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide, to carry arms in Iraq.

The company, notorious for its treating the license as an excuse for trigger-ready atrocities, is accordingly to remain armed in the country until September, The Nation said on Friday.

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Blackwater used 'Child Prostitutes in Iraq'

New disturbing charges have emerged against XE, the infamous private security firm formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide, whose operations came under spotlight after its 2007 carnage in Baghdad.

According to a report by MSNBC and based on alleged sworn declarations by two Blackwater employees in federal court, the firm used child prostitutes at its compound in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone.

The declarations added Iraqi minors got involve in sexual acts with Blackwater members in exchange for one dollar and Erik Prince, the firm's owner, "failed to stop the ongoing use of prostitutes, including child prostitutes, by his men."

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