Blackwater's Secret War in Pakistan

Source: The Nation

By Jeremy Scahill
November 23, 2009

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.

The source, who has worked on covert US military programs for years, including in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has direct knowledge of Blackwater's involvement. He spoke to The Nation on condition of anonymity because the program is classified. The source said that the program is so "compartmentalized" that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence.

The White House did not return calls or email messages seeking comment for this story. Capt. John Kirby, the spokesperson for Adm. Michael Mullen, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told The Nation, "We do not discuss current operations one way or the other, regardless of their nature." A defense official, on background, specifically denied that Blackwater performs work on drone strikes or intelligence for JSOC in Pakistan. "We don't have any contracts to do that work for us. We don't contract that kind of work out, period," the official said. "There has not been, and is not now, contracts between JSOC and that organization for these types of services." The previously unreported program, the military intelligence source said, is distinct from the CIA assassination program that the agency's director, Leon Panetta, announced he had canceled in June 2009. "This is a parallel operation to the CIA," said the source. "They are two separate beasts." The program puts Blackwater at the epicenter of a US military operation within the borders of a nation against which the United States has not declared war--knowledge that could further strain the already tense relations between the United States and Pakistan. In 2006, the United States and Pakistan struck a deal that authorized JSOC to enter Pakistan to hunt Osama bin Laden with the understanding that Pakistan would deny it had given permission. Officially, the United States is not supposed to have any active military operations in the country. Blackwater, which recently changed its name to Xe Services and US Training Center, denies the company is operating in Pakistan. "Xe Services has only one employee in Pakistan performing construction oversight for the U.S. Government," Blackwater spokesperson Mark Corallo said in a statement to The Nation, adding that the company has "no other operations of any kind in Pakistan."

A former senior executive at Blackwater confirmed the military intelligence source's claim that the company is working in Pakistan for the CIA and JSOC, the premier counterterrorism and covert operations force within the military. He said that Blackwater is also working for the Pakistani government on a subcontract with an Islamabad-based security firm that puts US Blackwater operatives on the ground with Pakistani forces in counter-terrorism operations, including house raids and border interdictions, in the North-West Frontier Province and elsewhere in Pakistan. This arrangement, the former executive said, allows the Pakistani government to utilize former US Special Operations forces who now work for Blackwater while denying an official US military presence in the country. He also confirmed that Blackwater has a facility in Karachi and has personnel deployed elsewhere in Pakistan. The former executive spoke on condition of anonymity.

Read more: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091207/scahill

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Glenn Greenwald is calling this a "huge story."
http://twitter.com/glenngreenwald/status/5991869546

Is the act that authorized war in Iraq broad enough to authorize such military or quasi-military campaigns. Doesn't this go beyond intelligence gathering? What is the defined function of our intelligence services? If this story is true, does this comply with the Constitution?

NYT: "This video report from Al Jazeera includes shots of of Azam Tariq, a spokesman for the broad alliance of Pakistani militant groups known as the Tehrik-i-Taliban, saying, “I want to tell the people in Pakistan and the Muslim nation that the Tehrik-i-Taliban are not responsible for the bombings, but Blackwater and Pakistan’s spy agency are behind them.”

How did the Taliban know Blackwater was there?

Do you remember the journalist that was arrested last week in Pakistan -- he had been taking snapshots of a house rented by Blackwater?

I don't think it's much of a secret.

maybe they saw it on Netflix.

Or maybe they read the intel reports.

Bottom line is that the more there is a "need" for private mercenaries paid for with our tax dollars to keep busy (if peace breaks out they go broke) the more likely it is that they will go rogue or follow orders which create more violence to justify their existence.

False flag ops are S.O.P. to keep the money rolling in ...

Like firemen who set fires ...

mercenaries plant bombs and blame the bad guys so we will keep sending their employers huge paychecks and so they willl have job security.

of their loop. How many times has Deathwater fired on our troops? It makes me wonder, they really demonstrate why no nation can endure "private security"(deathsquads) to run around; how soon until China sends XE into the U.S. to get "their" money(very worst case scenario)? Crazy, letting this go on.

it`s the same old shit every empire pulls before it collapses.

which. like Naziism, never really died but re-branded after a PR makeover.

I sometimes wonder if fear of these killers is what keeps Obama from going after them to shut them down and prosecute those who gave them their marching orders.

New Boss same as Old Boss

The stench is pervasive

just an illegal rogue band of paid killers that were out murdering and raping and bombing the crap out of a foreign country while trying to start yet another war and any government that was paying them would be committing war crimes.
I am sure it's all been just a typo or maybe it's a brilliant chess move!
I am also just so sure that if it was "authorized" it would all be "legal".
:sarcasm:

It's the same Buzzy Krongard/Cofer Black crew who were in charge of the CIA units that were running the Al-Qaeda attack cells inside the US, obstructing FBI investigators, that ended up killing 3,000 Americans that eventful day. See,



Why are these people still running ops in AfPak and not under indictment by a Grand Jury?

Obama.

If we follow the Will Smith addage, we're all separated by only a few degrees of association. How close are you talking about?

"snatch and grabs" ...Last I knew this was called *murder*. What ever happened to arresting people and LEGALLY interrogating them?

and its government is actively involved in said terrorism.

This is one Blackwater operation I'd support wholeheartedly.

What? You want to make the entire ME into one big WAR Zone?!?

How about The World?!? :nuke: :crazy:

They are DLC Jackasses here to argue that the world is flat

read post #22

against India and Afghanistan.

Pakistani military and its intelligence service ISI has been linked to at least 10 terrorist groups and implicated in founding, recruiting, arming, funding and training them plus giving them operational and logistics help.

Pakistani government is the number 1 terrorist.

When Pakistan is balkanized into little countries and nukes confiscated, Taliban and Al Q'aida would be gone. Not until then.