Blackwater guards joined CIA raids: report
Guards from the Blackwater private security company took part in secret CIA raids in Iraq and Afghanistan, the New York Times reported Friday, citing former employees and intelligence officials.
Blackwater guards — notorious for abuses in Iraq, especially the killing of 17 civilians in Baghdad in September 2007 — participated in Central Intelligence Agency “snatch and grab” missions to capture or kill insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Times.
“It became a very brotherly relationship,” an unnamed former top CIA officer told the newspaper. “There was a feeling that Blackwater eventually became an extension of the agency.”
A spokesman for the North Carolina-based security firm, now renamed Xe Services, told the newspaper that it was never under contract to participate in clandestine raids.
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