Blackwater Investigated for Possible Links to Bombings

In recent days, Peshawar, the capital of the North-West Frontier Province in Pakistan, has come under heavy attacks. Many of these attacks have been suicide bombings, the first of which was on Oct. 28. According to CNN, a massive car bomb drove through the marketplace and killed about 100 people, wounding twice as many. On Nov. 8, a car bombing killed 17 people, including a Pakistani government official. The next day, a suicide bombing killed three people. The most recent attack was Tuesday, Nov. 10, when a car bomber struck at a crowded rotary in the city. He killed 26 people. As reported by Presstv, most of the dead were women and children. The Pakistani army says that the attacks are carried out by militants who are being defeated in the lower section of province, according to Presstv. Intelligence reports do confirm that the militants are being driven from their mountainside outposts on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. This indicates that these attacks are some form of retaliation. However, top Al Qaeda officials have a very different argument to make. As stated by CNN, Mustafa Abu Yazid, a top-ranking Al Qaeda official, has blamed the bombings on the U.S. security firm, Xe Services LLC, commonly referred to as Blackwater. In a recently released video message, Yazid claims "everyone knows what Blackwater and the criminal security contractors are doing[…]They are the ones who commit these heinous acts, then accuse the Mujahedeen of their crimes." According to CNN, Yazid claims that they are not behind these acts because Muslims "are fighting to protect the honor and lives of other Muslims." Blackwater is essentially a private army for hire, according The New York Times. It was founded in 1998 by former US Navy Seals, but mainly by a certain Erik Prince. From the beginning, Blackwater had many connections with the U.S. government. Prince himself served as an intern for President George Bush Sr. before joining the Navy Seals. Prince is also a donating member of the Republican Party, according to The Guardian, and has hired many former CIA and Pentagon officials. These suspicious connections which Blackwater has with the government did not help the company get out of the many scandals in which it was involved in. Prince was quoted as saying that he "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe." In 2005, four Blackwater employees shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians. Fourteen of these civilians were found to be killed "without cause" by the FBI, reports The Guardian. Many other incidents followed. In 2006, a drunken Blackwater employee killed an Iraqi security guard "for the country's vice-president." The Blackwater agent was flown out of Iraq and not tried. Many Iraqi officials had "long complained about what they called indiscriminate gunfire by private security forces hired by Americans." Earlier this month, following these incidents, former Blackwater officials said that executives in the company made secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials "intended to silence their criticism," reports The New York Times. According to The Guardian, two anonymous witnesses accused the company of smuggling weapons and arms into Iraq and destroying incriminating evidence. In 2007, a Congressional Subcommittee conducted an investigation of Blackwater. According to The Guardian, they described Blackwater as being "staffed by reckless guards-not always sober-who would shoot first and not stop to see who they had shot." Since that time, the Iraqi government declared that it would not renew Blackwater's operating license in the country. However, as reported by The Guardian, military contracts with Blackwater have increased by 30 percent under Obama's presidency thus far. According to The New York Times, the extent of these dealings by Blackwater with the CIA is largely classified. However, Islam Online, an internet based news station, interviewed a Pakistani intelligence official who claimed that they "have sent a report to the government regarding Backwater's presence in the country." Official intelligence reports stated that there are currently 20 to 25 Blackwater operatives in the North-West Frontier Province where the attacks took place. This is the province which borders Afghanistan, and it is also where intelligence believes Taliban officials are hiding. However, Pakistan has not granted the United States permission to come into the country seeking these terrorists. Although the U.S. has been pressuring Pakistan to allow them into the country, the government of Pakistan claims that it will pursue the terrorists on its own. Finding Blackwater troops in Pakistan would mean that the United States has made a significant breach in national sovereignty. However, it is still very unclear whether or not Blackwater had anything to do with the attacks on Peshawar.