The Muslim News

NEW YORK, (DAWN): Private security guards working for Blackwater, a private US security agency, participated in clandestine CIA raids against suspected insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, The New York Times reported on Thursday.

The role, the report said, would point to a much deeper connection between the company and the spy agency than had been previously disclosed and raised concerns over the legalities of involving contractors in the most sensitive operations conducted by the US government.

The “snatch and grab” raids took place regularly between 2004 and 2006, the Times said, when the insurgency in Iraq was escalating and security throughout the country was deteriorating.

However, Blackwater, renamed Xe Services, denied there was any contract for secret raid. “Blackwater USA was never under contract to participate in covert raids with CIA or Special Operations personnel in Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else. Any allegation to the contrary by any news organisation would be false,” Xe Services spokesman Mark Corallo said in an emailed statement. The company changed its name this year.

Blackwater’s ties to the CIA have emerged in recent months, beginning with disclosures that the agency had hired the company as part of a programme to assassinate leaders of Al Qaeda and to assist in the CIA’s Predator drone programme in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Leon E. Panetta, the director of CIA, recently initiated an internal review examining all Blackwater contracts with the agency to ensure that the company was performing no missions that were “operational in nature”, according to one government official.

The NYT said a US official confirmed that Blackwater provided security and moved around with CIA teams on missions in war zones, but he denied they performed CIA missions.

CIA spokesman George Little said: “This agency, like many others, uses contractors in roles that complement and enhance the skills of our own work force, just as American law permits. Agency staff officers have the decision-making authority and bear responsibility for results.”

The former Blackwater, based in Moyock, North Carolina, changed its corporate name after a series of use-of-force controversies, including a September 2007 shooting in Baghdad by five company security guards that left 17 civilians dead.The Times also reported that former Blackwater employees said they helped provide security on CIA flights that transported detainees.

But the XE Services spokesman also denied that part of the report. He said it was an old allegation that had repeatedly been withdrawn.

The report comes as the House Intelligence Committee is investigating the agency’s hiring of Blackwater to be part of a programme to kill or capture Al Qaeda leaders. The death squad programme had several lives over an eight-year period before it was cancelled by Mr Panetta in June. The CIA has said the effort yielded no success.

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/blackwater-personnel-took-part-in-cia-operations-us-paper-229

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