America's use of corporate mercenaries in Iraq is under renewed scrutiny in the wake of the Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad on Sept. 16. Employees of Blackwater USA stand accused of killing 17 Iraqi civilians. There is reason to believe that commercial and...
Picture the scene: The head of a private military company is appearing before the legislature. For years, his firm has prospered from the occupation of a resource-rich Asian country, protected by its shareholders' powerful political connections. Only now are years of...
Private military companies have been engaged in an intense struggle in recent months – over a $475 million deal billed, perhaps optimistically, as the last major security contract in Iraq. The contract, originally due to be awarded on April 10, involves a wide...
As the position of the Coalition forces in Iraq looks increasingly untenable, it is not just the fate of the national military contingents that is in question. Private military contractors, which make up the second largest Coalition contingent, are also considering...
The mother of a murdered Belfast teenager has met U.S. diplomats to express her concerns about a Pentagon security contract in Iraq. Jean McBride's son Peter was shot dead in 1992 by two soldiers from the Scots Guards. Their commanding officer, Lt. Col. Tim Spicer, is...
A new spotlight has been thrown on the army of private military operators in Iraq, following the emergence of footage that appears to show security guards shooting up civilian cars on "Route Irish," the notorious Baghdad Airport road. The so-called trophy...
The massive Iraq security contract awarded to British firm Aegis Defense Services came in for renewed criticism earlier this month, when the family of murdered Belfast man Peter McBride met with the U.S. consul-general in Belfast Howard Dean Pitman. Aegis chief...
The mother of a man murdered by two British soldiers in Belfast has asked the U.S. Department of Defense to cancel a $293 million Iraq security contract awarded to their commanding officer. Irish human rights group the Pat Finucane Center has filed a detailed...
The conviction of British mercenary Simon Mann by a Zimbabwean court could not have come at a worse time for Tim Spicer, Mann's fellow former Scots Guards officer and erstwhile colleague in security firm Sandline International. Mann's alleged coup plot in Equatorial...
"For me it began in far-off Mesopotamia now called Irak, that land of Biblical names and history, of vast deserts and date groves, scorching suns and hot winds, the land of Babylon, Baghdad and the Garden of Eden, where the rushing Euphrates and the mighty Tigris...
